


Little and Broken, but Still Good

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bad Parent Halward Pavus, Childbirth, Depression, Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Last Resort of Good Men, Implied/Referenced Animal Death, Just Say No to Demons, Kid Fic, Krem Deserves a Raise, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Maybe the convenience was the friends we made along the way, Not actually very convenient more a marriage of irony and spite, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Demands of the Qun, Pregnancy, Safewords, Secret Baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: This is Dorian's family. He found it all on his own.Or, the one where Dorian has a secret baby!!!
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 335
Kudos: 408





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Dragon Age fandom! I thought the best possible way to introduce myself was to write a story where Dorian Pavus marries a woman and they have a baby! NO WAIT COME BACK HE'S STILL TOTALLY GAY AND (EVENTUALLY) IN LOVE WITH BULL I PROMISE.
> 
> Many thanks to Ariaste for making me figure out where to start this story and how to give it an arc, Ylixia for encouraging this from the start, and everyone else who's helped this along.
> 
> Warning for references to a particularly awful version of Halward's planned (and thwarted) blood magic ritual involving a pregnant woman.

There would be a certain degree of irony, eventually, in the fact that Dorian’s first meeting with Molly Bell began with him shoving her bodily out of his bed. The irony would have been a great deal worse if, in the fashion of some melodramatic novel, she had struck her head falling and been left in some sort of coma, or been so injured as to cause a miscarriage.

In fact what she did was hit the rug by Dorian’s bed with a solid, fleshy thump and a hiss of "Maker’s _balls_ , I was only trying to wake you."

Dorian, still dragging himself back to reality as he woke, required a moment to realize that what sounded strange about the words was that she was speaking Trade, with a decidedly Soporati accent. He hadn’t heard anything but Tevene, mostly in the household elves’ subdued murmurs, since he’d been dragged back to his father's household and made a prisoner in this lavishly appointed suite.

She was not the first woman who had introduced herself into his rooms or his bed in the months of his captivity; his father seemed to believe that if Dorian could only be tricked into touching a naked woman he would be cured of his scandalous inclinations. Or perhaps he imagined that Dorian’s preference was only that--a preference, which he would set aside when he was sufficiently starved for sex. Whereupon he would apparently overlook not only the gender of the person in his bed but the fact that she had been _hired by his father to accost him in his sleep_ and gladly discover the joy of fucking women.

This woman, Dorian realized, as he moved to the edge of the bed--an expanse that did necessitate climbing on if one wished to reach him, sleeping in a tight defensive curl in the center--was not naked. She was also very obviously pregnant, and very pale, and vaguely familiar.

Dorian made a little gesture and then groaned at the sensation of his nonexistent mana and the utter failure of lights to appear.

"My name is Molly Bell," she said, moving to perch on a chest so that they were more nearly at eye level, but making no move to light a lamp. "Belli, when we're trying to be Tevinter, but I'm not going to be trying that much longer, one way or another."

Dorian's lips moved around the shape of that deeply Fereldan name; surely he would remember if he'd ever met...

"Halward," Molly added grimly, "calls me Melea."

The recognition clicked, then. The black-haired woman with very pale skin, perhaps five years younger than himself, richly dressed and jeweled, who he'd seen sometimes in the vicinity of Halward's rooms. This was his father's current paramour, clearly. Not a slave--it would be distasteful to bed a slave regularly--but whatever they called the arrangement, she was doing a job for pay, as much as any of the women who had tried to crawl into Dorian's bed on his father's orders.

"Makes me color this, too," Molly went on, running a hand over her braided hair. "Bit of Ferelden is exotic, but red hair is just vulgar, apparently."

Dorian nodded, his gaze slipping down to her belly again as realization settled into place. "You're... that's his..."

"Oh no the fuck it's not," Molly hissed, setting one hand protectively on her belly. "She's _mine_ and he can go to hell."

Molly was, Dorian realized, not only _not naked_ but dressed for travel. He raised his hands, placating, even as he started to wonder what she was doing here. Why would she delay her flight to speak to him? Unless...

Dorian sat up properly and focused on her even as he began to mentally pack a bag, working out what he had to take and what he could bear to leave behind.

Molly relaxed a little now that she had his attention, though her hand stayed on her belly. "When I first caught I figured I'd do what everyone does about that, which is tell the magister and get it taken care of quick-like, so it's no inconvenience to anyone. Only he says, hang on, not yet. And then he's busy all the time. And then _you're_ dragged home. And then he tells me he wants me to keep it, says he sees a way this could be a good thing."

Dorian's eyebrows rose. Alti might fuck slaves or Soporati or whomever else they liked, but they did not muck around combining _bloodlines_ with them. Bastards and other undesirable crosses were, as Molly had said, to be promptly aborted. The alternative would be in no way _a good thing_ in his father's eyes.

And yet, here was Molly and her obviously advanced pregnancy. The only way that could have come about was with his father's cooperation--at his father's insistence.

And he had had Dorian hauled back here--though he'd ignored Dorian's behavior for more than a year by then--only when he knew of the pregnancy. Dorian tried desperately to make sense of it, but nothing fit.

"And like a _fool_ ," Molly went on, seeming to speak more to herself than Dorian now, "I thought he meant, I dunno, he'd acknowledge her--he did the scry to see which it was, even, and I thought that had to mean something, if he cared whether it was a boy or girl. She couldn't be any real threat to you, but I thought he'd use her as leverage somehow, try--"

Molly shook her head sharply, and dropped her gaze. She drew her knees up, curling herself protectively around her belly; it looked very much like the way Dorian felt nearly all the time in his father's house. She didn't meet Dorian's eyes.

"You have to believe me," she said, very softly. "I wouldn't--I wouldn't make up a story like this, it would be mad if it weren't true. It _is_ mad. But we have to get out of here, you and me both, because tonight he said enough, hinting around, that I knew I had to find out what he wanted with my baby and her Pavus blood. And then I did."

Dorian shook his head a little--all the possibilities that crossed his mind just _weren't_ possible--but Molly reached into a pocket and drew out a folded sheaf of paper. When Dorian took the pages from her hand she stood up and went to the lamp on his bedside table, lighting it but keeping it turned down low.

Dorian didn't need much light to recognize his father's handwriting; he couldn't make himself read it properly, and it was mostly scraps of notes, scribbles, half-recorded thoughts, but he could see the direction of it, even before he reached the final page, which was a mass of writing, crossed out and reworked over and over. The goal seemed to be clarity, specificity, and a lack of exploitable ambiguities, so there was very little possibility of misinterpreting.

The result of that work, written at the bottom of the page in an unhesitating hand, was precisely what his father meant to ask a demon to do to Dorian, after it had been paid with the blood of an unborn Pavus bastard. The blood of her Soporatus mother was to be thrown in gratis--a negligible addition.

Dorian raised his head and met Molly's eyes, which looked as wide as his felt; he couldn't hear anything but the thundering of his heart until she said, "Didn't read it wrong, did I."

Dorian shook his head. "We're leaving. You and me both. Now."

Molly nodded, and pulled something else from her pocket: a vial of lyrium. It wouldn't instantly reverse the effects of being dosed with magebane for weeks--months now--but it would give him something to work with.

Dorian did not linger long enough to pack anything that didn't fit in his pockets.

* * *

What followed was a series of days and nights that blurred together into a waking nightmare.

There was no chance for the other kind, because every time he closed his eyes Dorian saw his father's handwriting forming phrases like, _chance of mental incapacitation_ and _ability to perform biological functions_. Even if he'd been willing to risk himself to the Fade with all that crowding in on him, the sick jolt of adrenaline pushed sleep back again and again.

There was little enough time for sleep, anyway. There were wards and barriers to set, hiding himself and Molly from detection as he coaxed his mana back to something like its usual strength. There were miles to walk through back ways and along fence lines, and then jewels to pawn--Molly had left with her pockets even more full than Dorian's--and transport to arrange and so very, very many thoughts to push away at every moment.

Molly did her share as well; she could adjust her voice and manners to pass as anything from a Laetan lady to a Fereldan fresh off the Imperial Highway from the Bannorn. She taught Dorian a little of it, in the hours when they huddled together in whatever shelter they settled in for the night, neither of them sleeping.

Dorian wasn't any good at Southern accents, but Molly's determined efforts made him slightly more able to seem less exactly what he was, when he chose to.

They didn't talk about what they were fleeing from. He didn't ask Molly what visions kept her eyes snapping open whenever they drifted shut. He didn't ask her, every time she brought out another jewel to trade or sell, when his father had given it to her, or what she had exchanged for it.

He tried very hard not to ask, when she put a hand to her belly and frowned down at it. But the frown didn't ease, and she didn't take her hand away, and Dorian's endurance ran out all at once. "Are you--is she--"

Molly looked up before he stumbled to the end of the question, and she smiled, weary but genuine. "Kicking, that's all. Not much room left and she's got herself a nasty angle on my insides and-- _oh_."

Dorian's gaze dropped back to Molly's hand, and his senses all seemed to crystallize, everything going clear and sharp and focused, like surfacing out of the murk of the last several days. Molly was pregnant, but that wasn't just a fact about Molly: she was carrying a child who would soon come into the world and be someone of her own, someone very real. Someone who would be even more vulnerable to the danger at their heels than he and Molly were.

"Dorian?"

He jerked his gaze back up to meet Molly's worried look. "My apologies, I--" He groped for some polite way to dissemble--but why lie, to Molly of all people? "I just... realized that she's her own person, I suppose," Dorian said, not quite knowing how to put it into words. "Or will be soon, at least."

Molly's look faded into a wry smile. "I know the feeling. For the first months, it's just like an illness, and your body is strange but only in that way. But then--I felt her move, and it was someone else moving, not me."

Dorian nodded. "What will you..."

He trailed off. Among the many things they hadn't spoken of was what they would do after they were sufficiently _away_. It was a long time since he'd seen any particular plan for his own life beyond avoiding what his father demanded; he had no idea how he would live outside of Tevinter, though he was sure he would manage. His odds had to be better anywhere else than they'd been at home.

He'd had the vague idea that Molly was headed for family, people of her own, but she would surely have mentioned it by now if she had some specific destination in mind. She would be giving birth within a matter of weeks--where? With what assistance? And how would she support and protect herself and a child, a _Pavus_ child, for years to come?

Molly visibly gritted her teeth, raising her chin a little. "I'll manage."

Dorian nodded slowly. He couldn't argue with her; she'd been the one to save both--all three--of them, however much he'd contributed to their escape since. Surely she would manage the rest. And yet Dorian found he couldn't bear the thought of letting her walk away and never _knowing_ , never doing anything more to be sure that his father couldn't hurt them.

But what use could he possibly be to Molly or her child? His hand went automatically to one of the few items of any value he'd brought away with him, the jeweled amulet that signified his Pavus birthright to those without the ability to read the true mark he carried. He couldn't even show it to anyone, since it would leave an obvious sign for his father's men to track down later on.

"I owe you a debt," Dorian said slowly. "And the House of Pavus owes you..."

Legally, of course, the House of Pavus owed them nothing--barely Molly's own life and certainly not her child's. But legally Dorian's father was also entitled to keep his heir a prisoner; Dorian wasn't particularly interested in what the law decreed just now.

If there were a just law, if there were real justice to be had, what then would they be owed?

The false promises made to Molly ought to mean something; the false hopes his father had given her to convince her to keep the child ought to be fulfilled somehow. Dorian's father could never be made to acknowledge or support the child, of course, but--

The solution struck Dorian all at once, bright and sure as any bolt of lightning or ball of fire he'd ever drawn from the Fade to do his will.

Halward would never offer Molly the support and protection of House Pavus, and would never acknowledge her child. If Dorian wanted to make that right, however--Dorian could. Dorian could do that and more.

"Molly," he said, a wicked smile spreading across his face, to somewhat alarming effect judging from Molly's expression. "I must beg, most ardently--I must tell you it is my dearest heart's desire--that you marry me, and make our lovely and hopefully red-headed daughter my extremely legitimate heir."

Molly's jaw dropped. Dorian only half succeeded in restraining a laugh that might have been more of a hysterical giggle if given full voice.

"It's _perfect_ ," he insisted. "You're a Pavus, then, precisely as much as I am. _She's_ a Pavus, heir to a seat in the Magisterium, through me. And my father cannot compel me to marry and father an heir when I already have a wife and child."

Molly blinked at him. "And, what, we all go to Minrathous and say so?"

"Oh," Dorian blinked back, coming back down to earth. "No, no. Fasta vass, _no_. I don't know how much testing it would bear, really, if we tried to push the idea in his face. I doubt we could even find a chantry willing to marry us without my father's consent, here. But as insurance for our flight, just in case... it would hold up better elsewhere than in Tevinter. We'd have legitimacy to claim against any harassment from my father, should he track us down."

And it would give Dorian some way to express the responsibility he really did feel to Molly and the child, however little it was worth just now. Later on, after he'd established himself somewhere in the South, he'd be able to repay this debt, and have a route to do so. Considering that, he added, "She _is_ a Pavus, you know. I don't know what half an Altus' worth of magical inheritance is, but it's not likely to come to nothing at all. She ought to have a father to turn to for help with that, when the time comes."

"Turn to," Molly said cautiously. "From... how far away, exactly?"

"Oh!" Dorian spread his hands. "However far you wish, of course. It would be best if we knew how to contact each other, but... my father would likely find it easier to find me than to find you, if he comes looking; I'll certainly stand out more in the south than you will. It would be best if you and the child were at some distance, likely. This need not alter your plans, for the most part."

Molly's expression turned thoughtful; she glanced down at herself and then met his eyes again and said, wryly, "But whatever will I wear for our wedding, Lord Dorian?"

"Anything you like, my lady," Dorian assured her grandly, and this time Molly laughed first.

* * *

The plan decided their direction, more than their previous headlong flight toward any border they could reach; the chantry at Colina Campo, barely over the Antivan border, was well known as the destination of choice for Tevinters fleeing to make marriages they couldn't within the Imperium. Dorian had cherished the occasional mad fantasy of running there with--he quickly blotted actual names and faces from his mind--with another boy, or another man, as he grew older.

Even so he scarcely believed that _those_ stories were true until he actually saw two men--both Soporati, he judged, by their clothing and accents--sitting on the chantry steps to wait their turn, hands clasped tight between them. He felt a strange sharp dart of pain at the sight of them, cutting through the grim exhausted haze. If only--he could have been one of them, if--if--

But he could also be a drooling imbecile married off to some obedient Altus broodmare, and Molly and her child could be dead, and a demon loose in the world as their only legacy. Instead they were all here in the sun, with a Chantry sister smiling and taking their names for her records before leading them into a chapel.

The process of getting married--willingly! to a woman!--was a much simpler affair at Colina Campo than the ghastly panoply it would have involved had his parents had their way. He found himself grinning at Molly as they exchanged their vows, not even entirely in irony. She was, very truly, the only woman he could imagine ever making such promises to, and he would be fiercely glad to keep those promises as well as he could, and to name her daughter as his. She grinned back in much the same spirit, he thought. They were nearly giddy by the time they'd finished and signed their names to two different ledgers and two copies of the marriage record to take away with them.

Colina Campo was well acquainted with couples who wished to make very sure that their marriage could be thoroughly verified as legitimate but brought no actual witnesses of their own.

A few other couples stood by to witness their wedding, in fact, and were formally recorded attesting to it; Dorian and Molly lingered when their own brief ceremony was completed to return the favor for a few others. The two Soporati men were among them, and Dorian turned his brightest smile on them and wrote his own name down in witness, boldly and clearly.

The sight of Molly's new name beside his was arresting: _Lady Molly Bell Pavus, lately of Qarinus._ Somehow it seemed even more real, on this record that had little to do with them, than on their own marriage records. This was what they had wrought together; this was who Molly was now, to him and to the world.

After that, Dorian soon spotted the wordless signs of Molly needing to get off her feet, pee, and eat something, and they left the chantry for one of the many local inns that did a brisk business in renting rooms for wedding nights. The inn had a register, too, ready to testify that this or that couple had undeniably spent a night together in a room with only one bed and absolutely no chaperones.

Everyone around them went through these motions with cheerful smirks--consummation was obviously a bit redundant when the wedding was to be followed by a birth only weeks, or possibly days, later--but they went through them all the same. It was no good being married if they left any opening for the marriage to be questioned.

Of course, for a member of House Pavus, that wasn't only a matter of witnesses and documents.

No Altus paterfamilias would stoop to consulting mere paper, or the testimony of foreign Soporati, to know who was a member of his House. Even the birthright amulet Dorian carried, which would pass as proof to most people, would be neither necessary nor sufficient to demonstrate the truth of his marriage, and the legitimacy of his child, to Halward and his peers in the Magisterium. They would require a true mark, like the one Dorian had borne from his father since he was an infant--and like the mark whose shadowy dark shape he had once or twice glimpsed in the same place on his father's chest, when the cut of his clothing chanced to almost reveal it.

Molly, presumably, had seen it directly, and that seemed as good a way as any to raise the subject to her, once they were alone in an inn room for their wedding night.

There really was just the one bed, though Molly had parceled out enough coin that it was clean and large. The room around it was not much larger, however; there was no chair he could reasonably curl up in for the night. There was barely even enough floor to stretch out on.

Molly huffed and elbowed him out of his calculations. "We can share, Dorian. We _are_ married, after all."

He glanced at her. "I thought you might have had enough of sharing with a Pavus."

"Well, now I am one, and so is she," Molly pointed out, pressing a hand lightly to her belly. "There's still room in the bed for one more."

Dorian still hesitated, and Molly added, "I'm not afraid of you, or what you'll do. I trust you. We can share."

She sat down, partly emphasizing her point and partly just needing to get off her feet, as far as Dorian could tell.

Dorian gave a jerky nod and perched at the foot of the bed so he wouldn't loom over her as he said, "I am both honored and grateful, dear wife, but--there is actually a wedding night matter to sort out."

Molly raised her eyebrows.

"Not sex, obviously," Dorian hastened to add. "But..." He touched his hand to his chest, where his mark was still hidden under his robes. "There is the matter of fully establishing your membership in House Pavus."

Molly's eyebrows climbed higher, and she folded her arms, the gesture in no way softened by the way they rested on the upper curve of her belly when she did so. "Don't tell me I have to have a great ugly black snake tattoo in the middle of my chest."

Dorian grimaced, and rubbed the heel of his hand against his own mark; he couldn't really fault the description, except in one respect. "It's not a tattoo, in fact. And it need not be on your chest--a woman's usually isn't, unless she's the heir of her House. And... it need not be ugly, I think. I know the design isn't identical from generation to generation, so presumably I can make it different--hopefully even something worthy of you."

Now that they came to it, Dorian wasn't entirely sure how it worked, making such a mark. Was this something he was meant to learn from his father on the eve of his wedding? But he knew a fair bit about the workings and theory of the House-marks, having spent a certain amount of time morbidly researching how his own bound him to his father and what would happen to it if he was disowned.

The answer he'd found for the former question was _irrevocably_ but also _not very usefully_ \--his father would always have some sense of Dorian's location and continued life, but no more than that, and actual tracking would require Halward himself to be within a few miles of Dorian. It seemed unlikely that his father would personally take to the road to find him, so that was an academic concern at most.

For the latter, it appeared to depend on how vindictive his father was feeling about the disowning--something to look forward to, perhaps, in future years.

"It's magic," Dorian added. "It shouldn't hurt, or require any time to heal, or anything like that. We just have to decide where, and what. It is best if the meaning is quite obvious."

"Will it work?" Molly asked. "I mean--if it's magic, do I have to be magic for it to stick on me?"

Dorian blinked, considering that obstacle, but quickly shook his head. "No, no, that's no bar. My friend Maevaris--Magister Tilani--she was married, not really legally, but--she was married to a dwarf, and I know she gave him a mark and he bore it until he died, and he hadn't any more magic than most dwarves do. At least, being human, you have some connection to the Fade."

Molly nodded, frowning a little pensively. "I think... maybe more than I used to. Not--not that I can _do_ anything, but... my dreams have been strange, since I first felt her move. A different kind of strange."

Dorian stiffened, and Molly looked up to roll her eyes. "Yes, my lord, even Soporati know not to accept any bargain they're offered in a dream."

"Of course," Dorian agreed, thinking uneasily of how rich a target a pregnant woman and her unborn child must make to a demon--even if the child wasn't Altus, or magically gifted, the opportunity to enter the world in a form a demon could shape so thoroughly...

Well, there was no more protection he could offer Molly and the child than this, so he might as well get on with what he could do. "Would you rather it be colorful than black? I know Mae's own mark, and the one she gave Thorold, were quite vivid. I think the black is a matter of... tradition. And we're obviously throwing that out the window."

Molly nodded a little. "I don't really like snakes, but I don't suppose there's a way around that."

"Mm," Dorian said, drawing his birthright amulet out to show Molly what he was thinking. "The snakes are an element of our crest--though the actual emblem also includes the stylized fan, for our surname..."

"Hell," Molly said. "Is _that_ why you always had a pack of those wretched screaming birds in the gardens and no one would touch them? I thought it couldn't be only because they were pretty."

Dorian nodded. "So I can't see any objection to using a peacock, or perhaps a peacock feather, as a mark. That would be rather pleasing to look at, wouldn't it?"

He could imagine the design, the rich colors of the feather, the way that it would flutter when he touched it, responding to his magic.

"Where, exactly, would I be looking at it?" Molly sounded dubious all over again. "I've heard of women having them on their faces..."

Dorian grimaced. "That... would certainly not be unheard of, for an Altus who took a Soporatus to wife--it being assumed that she would have to constantly prove her membership in her husband's House. A hand would be the more magnanimous equivalent. Otherwise... it's generally a matter of status. A man marrying a woman of essentially equal status would place his mark--" Dorian gestured around his midsection, winning a sardonic smile from Molly as she echoed the gesture, rubbing her swollen belly.

"Ah," Dorian said. He'd never pictured before just how directly such a mark would stamp a pregnancy as the property of the House. "Yes. Well, so. A man marrying a woman of _higher_ status than himself would place the mark lower--calf or ankle, perhaps even her foot, if he was particularly willing to humble himself to her--to her father, really, but... in any case, I think that when it comes to a feckless, penniless Altus marrying the woman who singlehandedly saved him, herself, and their daughter from being victims of blood magic..."

Dorian let his gaze move over Molly from her head to her feet, which she had hauled up onto the bed, and he finished, "Foot, certainly. The sole of the foot, perhaps, if it would console her to be grinding House Pavus under her heel with every step she took away from Tevinter."

Molly snorted, then shook her head a little. "Like you said, my daughter's a Pavus, and I am--and you are. The best parts of our House don't belong under my heel, thank you. But on my foot, that'd be all right. I'll even be able to see it for myself, once my belly's out of the way."

"It shall be done as you say," Dorian assured her grandly, and, thankfully, doing the actual magic turned out not to be much more complicated than that. He wrapped his hand around her foot, thinking very firmly and clearly of the desired result, and that was that.

"There," Dorian said, looking down in bemused pride at the richly colored feather for a moment before he summoned a mirror to let Molly see what he'd done. "Now you're _really_ a Pavus."

* * *

They relocated to humbler accommodations after their wedding night, which qualified as a restful night's sleep for both of them, after the last several frantic days and nights. It was probably no more than exhausted wishful thinking, but Dorian found himself sure, as he lay down beside Molly in that big bed, that they would be some protection for each other against the Fade now that they were so inextricably bound. Whether he was actually right about that or they were both simply too exhausted to notice any enterprising demons visiting, neither of them were aware of any dreams that night.

Other concerns pushed to the forefront after that; Molly visited a midwife recommended by one of the chantry sisters, and learned that the backache she'd been ignoring was possibly a sign of impending labor. Dorian felt vaguely panicked at that--surely they had to _do things_ to prepare for that. Surely they were meant to have more time?

Molly and the midwife both rolled their eyes at him. Apparently this was a common and risible reaction from fathers-to-be.

Dorian set himself to be very calm, after that, which lasted through Molly _really_ going into labor, and demanding that he come into the room so that she could clutch his hand and harangue him, and being sent away because she didn't want to look at him, and brought back again because she needed him.

By that time Molly was quiet and focused and hardly seemed to notice him other than bracing herself on his arm while she moved into one bizarre position after another. He was grateful that she was still clothed in a billowing linen garment, even if it was sweat-drenched and therefore nearly transparent. It still more or less veiled the most intimate details of what was happening from his sight, which he thought might matter, sometime when Molly was more aware of anything outside her own body.

Dorian thought that there were probably people more qualified than himself to do what little he was doing, but by then it had occurred to him that he was the person Molly knew and trusted most in all of Antiva and possibly all the world. Whatever family she had had back in Tevinter, she hadn't gone to _them_ for protection or help in fleeing, after all.

And she was a Pavus, now, she and the child both, so they had a right to whatever use they could make of him, even if it was only his ability to keep his arm steady while most of Molly's weight rested against it. Dorian struggled to at least appear as calm as Molly did, but there was a moment when the midwife disappeared on some errand, and Molly looked him directly in the eye, abruptly as present and lucid as Dorian himself.

"If I don't make it," she said. "Swear you'll keep her away from him. You must never let him even know she exists."

"I swear," Dorian said, and then glanced down at the lack of visible torrents of blood, and the doorway through which the midwife had departed in no apparent rush, and struggled not to show that his heart was suddenly racing in surprisingly abject terror. "Is that... likely?"

Molly shut her eyes and let out a gritted-teeth sound that escalated, terrifyingly quickly, into a scream.

Dorian was tempted to join in for a wild instant, and then the midwife came rushing back in with another on her heels. It happened fast after that, or at least everything seemed to be happening all at once. Dorian couldn't have said how much time actually passed; suddenly there was a tiny, blood-covered howling baby, pink-skinned and with a shock of black hair.

"Oh," Dorian said, very softly, watching one of the midwives pass a hand over her and feeling the brush of some very mild sort of magic--not healing, but a kind of scrying. Checking for something? Would they realize that he wasn't--that the baby wasn't--

But the midwife looked up and took in Dorian as well as Molly with her pleased glance, obviously seeing nothing amiss. "You have a healthy daughter. She'll make a mage, I think, too."

Dorian realized that he was beaming besottedly, and turned to look at Molly, who was exhausted but smiling--and then her face went tight with pain. "Molly? What--"

"Just a little more work to do here," the midwife not holding the baby said from between Molly's legs, one hand on Molly's not-particularly-deflated belly. "You can hold the baby, if you want to be useful, Sister Linna's hands are more needed than yours."

"Ah," Dorian said, raising his hands in a vague warding gesture that Sister Linna willfully misinterpreted, coming over and pressing the little squirming bundle of linen-wrapped baby into the crook of one arm and against his chest.

"Grip firmly, she's used to tight quarters," Sister Linna said, still beaming at him as she folded his arms into place, manhandling him with an ease and authority that he would have liked from someone who was not a chantry sister showing him how to hold a newborn baby-- _his_ newborn daughter, and heir in the line of the House of Pavus.

Dorian looked down at the baby, who was blinking up at him with dark eyes, and it all felt alarmingly real.

"Salve, filia," he whispered, and he didn't look away from her until she was scooped out of his arms to be handed over to Molly and he turned out to be entirely superfluous once again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say _secret_ baby in the summary...

Dorian took his promise to Molly--all his promises, but particularly the one about making sure that his father never learned of their daughter's existence--very seriously.

The logical way to do that seemed to be to never speak of her--of either of them--to anyone. His nonexistent circle of acquaintance in the south made that an easy matter in the literal sense. Otherwise, he wrote and then burned countless letters to Felix and Mae, announcing his marriage and the birth of his daughter. That way he exorcised the urge to confide in his dearest friends before he could write real letters to them, saying that he was safe and well in exile, and mentioning no one else.

By the time he had been in the south for a year, he had begun to channel the impulse into writing letters he never sent to his daughter herself instead--not to burn, but to seal in a spell-locked strongbox along with the record of his marriage and her birth.

 _Euthalia Doria Pavus_ , he wrote, admiring the elegant loops and lines of her Tevinter name. He had thought the _Doria_ was a bit excessive, but Molly had insisted, after they settled on Euthalia--it meant flower, literally _good thing blooming_ , and Euthalia was surely the finest culmination that the House of Pavus could hope for.

Dorian only rarely wrote actual letters to send to Molly. They had worked out a system that seemed reasonably safe, sending letters to predetermined locations to be held until called for. It wasn't a speedy method of correspondence, but it meant they could convey genuinely important information to each other, and he still knew nothing more dangerously specific than what city Molly thought she might pass through sometime in the next few months, as of the last letter she'd written him.

The marks he had laid on Molly and on Euthalia did give Dorian a dim sense of where they were, and that they were alive, though he had to concentrate very intently to get a specific direction and idea of distance. It was reassuring, in a way; it meant his father would have to make a similar effort to locate Dorian, and clearly that was not worth the trouble.

Still, it was good, when he found himself worrying, to be able to sit down and quiet his mind and feel the faint thread that bound him to his ladies, tugging in one direction or another from some reassuringly great distance.

It wasn't the only way he ever had to know they were well; Molly wrote to him from time to time by the same method he wrote to her. She called Euthalia _Tally_ in her letters, which seemed a suitably Fereldan diminutive of her obtrusively Tevinter name. Molly was pleased to report that Tally's hair had lightened from the black thatch she'd had at birth to a dark brown that showed a red tint in sunlight, and that she was thriving in all other respects as well. 

Molly was less specific about how she was supporting them both--the jewels couldn't have lasted forever--but then Dorian didn't confide his own various experiments in earning his own living in his letters either.

Dorian slipped Molly's letters into the strongbox with everything else, and tried to lock even the thought of them away in his own mind just as securely. If he didn't think of them too much he wouldn't worry, or wish he might see them, especially when he was feeling lonely and homesick. The less he let himself think of them, the better.

He supposed that that was why he managed to be taken utterly by surprise, the third Summerday after they'd left Tevinter, when he realized that he could sense their locations fairly clearly, with a strong sense that they were nearby. He was in Val Royeaux at the time, so _nearby_ was not a very complete guide, but he managed to navigate by that little tug of awareness until he was in a shabby but respectable corner of the city. The procession of the youths to the chantry had been earlier in the day, and they now dotted the crowds in their pure white clothes, a reminder of the solemn purpose of the day amidst the festival cheer.

And there, standing at a market stall full of bright ribbons and fabrics, he spotted a copper-haired woman with a darker-haired child on her hip. Dorian walked closer slowly, wondering if he could possibly get Molly's attention without the child seeing, so that Molly could signal whether she cared to introduce him to Tally or not.

But his heart was beating fast, and the mark on his own chest seemed to ache a little, as if reaching out for the brilliant blue-green feather he had laid over Euthalia's heart two and a half years ago. The pressure of it recalled to him the weight of her resting against his chest when he had held her. It could have been yesterday.

Then Molly glanced in his direction and Dorian stopped where he was, raising a hand in mute acknowledgment. Molly's expression was blank with shock for a moment, and then she smiled broadly and looked down at her daughter, saying something to the child with every indication of unmixed happiness.

Tally twisted in her mother's arms to look for him, and without a thought Dorian was hurrying forward to meet his daughter properly.

She had light eyes--not Dorian's changeable gray, which he had inherited from his mother, but Molly's pale green, like fine jade. The direct summer sunlight was raising shades of red in her neatly braided hair, but by candlelight it would look nearly as dark as Dorian's.

And there, just beside her left eye, was the mirror of Dorian's own beauty mark. Molly had never mentioned it, and there hadn't been any sign of it when Euthalia was born, but it was perfectly visible on her cheek now, like a painter's signature on a work of art, stamping her as a Pavus.

"Hello," Dorian said, eyes locked on the child, unwavering even when Molly jounced her a little and said, "Say hello to your Papa, Tally."

Tally bit her lip shyly, but reached for Dorian, and he didn't stop to think before he reached back, drawing her to him. She was much bigger than before, naturally. Her little fingers, barely long enough to wrap around one of his the last time he held her, were perfectly dexterous now; she poked gingerly at his moustache, then traced each curling end, while Dorian smiled helplessly at her.

"Hello," Tally said finally, looking up to meet his eyes. "Papa?"

"Yes, that's me. Hello, Tally." That was apparently good enough for Tally; she settled against his shoulder and curled an arm around his neck, with every sign of intending to stay all day.

He passed her back to Molly eventually, but they spent hours together wandering around the festival, talking like--well, like old friends who hadn't seen each other in years and had heard only the vaguest news of each other in that time. Unexpectedly encountering Mae or Felix--he ached with longing at the thought--would have been much the same, except that they would not have had the constant interruption/distraction/entertainment of looking after a small child in the middle of a festival.

Once, when Tally was becoming restless, Dorian summoned a bit of veilfire to distract her, making the wisp of light change color as it danced over his palm. He noticed Molly's flinch at the sudden appearance, and realized that she likely hadn't been around mages much in the last two and a half years--and she must have seen far more magic in her months with Halward than her weeks with Dorian. He had been conserving his strength then, using it only for the direst necessities in guarding their escape, and so had been nearly as cautious as any southern mage would have been. Casual magic would bring to mind someone else entirely.

But Tally was delighted by the veilfire, and when he shot Molly an apologetic look, she shook her head and smiled ruefully. Dorian glanced around to see whether anyone else had taken notice of the sinister Tevinter doing magic in their midst, but with the camouflage of his obviously Fereldan wife and affectionate child, no one seemed to take notice of him at all.

He was careful to be obvious, after that, whenever he was going to do a bit of magic to entertain Tally, which grew more frequently necessary as the day went on. He didn't see Molly flinch from it again, but by the evening she was looking as tired as he'd ever seen her, and when Tally fell asleep in her arms she said quietly, "We'll go on our way now. Are you staying in Val Royeaux?"

Dorian shook his head, preparing himself to return to what had become his ordinary life in the last few years, scrabbling for survival and hearing about Molly and Tally only in occasional letters. "Passing through." He'd had no particular plan for where to go next, only that he'd last told Molly that he would look for a letter in Val Firmin. "You?"

"My plans haven't changed," Molly agreed with a nod--so his next letter would be sent to Nevarra City. She squeezed his hand, and Dorian darted in to press a quick kiss to Tally's hair and another to Molly's cheek before he turned away.

He didn't let himself look back. He had to put this entire day in the strongbox and lock it up.

It was only later that he discovered one of Tally's crumpled hair ribbons in a pocket. That went into the strongbox, too.

* * *

_My Dearest Ladies,_

_I hope this finds you well, and given where you will find it, I hope you are staying in the neighborhood for the foreseeable future--or indeed anywhere north of the Waking Sea. Rivain is lovely this time of year, for instance._

_I'm sure even where you are you are aware of the dreadful events in Haven, and I have been asked by a friend to venture nearer to the center of the cataclysm and to do what I can to help in ending it. My only comfort is to know that both of you are far away, and safe. Please do take care to stay that way._

_If you would be so kind as to write to reassure me, letters sent to the Gull and Lantern, near Redcliffe, will be collected._

_Your humble servant,  
Dorian (or Papa, as you prefer)_

* * *

Evelyn had told him that she had to go meet "some emissary" in Redcliffe. Dorian had thought that that made himself, Bull, and Sera an odd choice of companions--until she took him aside during a stop to rest the horses, halfway there, and showed him the letter explaining who they were to meet.

"And we're going," Dorian said slowly, feeling as if he were encased in ice, as if everything was very far away, as he looked at his father's handwriting, so much like the last lines written in those notes Molly had stolen, which were locked in his strongbox now, "to Redcliffe. To the Gull and Lantern."

"Yyyyyes," Evelyn said. "I don't think I said which tavern, but yes, that's where we're going. If you think it's some kind of trap..."

If he thought it was some kind of trap--if he thought that somehow someone had intercepted one of Molly's letters to him at the Gull and Lantern, and had divined its meaning and her location from it, or if someone had captured Molly and gotten the letter-drop location from her and used it to draw him out of Skyhold--then he had to go. He had to know what they knew, had to find some way to keep Molly and Tally safe.

But there was no hint of that in the letter. If this were about them, Dorian was nearly certain that his father would have made some reference to them. There was no sign of that, and no real reason Halward should know.

No one knew. Dorian hadn't even told Evelyn, had never gotten maudlin-drunk enough to spill it to Bull; the strongbox had about six different locking spells on it now, all set to release upon his death so that whoever cleared out his room in the keep would find his instructions to get the contents of the box to Molly. But the box was safe, and held its secrets, and he'd never told anyone at all, not a whisper.

Even _Cole_ had never mentioned them when he was reporting the contents of Dorian's innermost thoughts--which Dorian permitted himself to be proud of at that moment, since Cole was presently safely far away.

So no one knew. And things would go on that way as long as Dorian kept his head enough to act like there was nothing significant about the Gull and Lantern, and no one else involved in his decision to flee from his family and remain in the south rather than return to them. He had no idea what retainer Halward might have sent; he had a vision of his old elven nanny dispatched to plead with him, and resolved to have Evelyn emancipate her by fiat and invite her back to Skyhold with them if that was the case. But even in the worst case--even if his father had sent a detachment of armed guards--all Dorian had to do was say, _No, I'm not going anywhere._ He wasn't naked and defenseless in someone else's bed this time. He wasn't alone.

Evelyn would back him, and so would Bull and Sera. He smiled a little, then, realizing that Evelyn had brought along the two members of the Inquisition who Dorian would most trust to defend him, after herself. Once it was over, perhaps they'd even spend the night at the Gull and Lantern before heading back; he and Bull might get to share a bed _and_ a roof all at the same time. Dorian glanced over at them now, and wasn't surprised to see both of them unabashedly watching him and Evelyn. Sera stuck her tongue out; Bull waved.

"I don't think there's any physical danger," Dorian said, handing back the letter. "But I could have saved us all a trip if you'd shown that to me back in Skyhold."

Evelyn's brow wrinkled. "You're sure? You won't even speak to them? This is your family, Dorian. Cousin."

Dorian just blinked at her and bit back all the things he wanted to say, and also the impulse to pat her on the head like she was Tally.

"Family means different things to different people," Dorian said, as levelly as he could. "To me, for the last few years, it means the people I must stay well away from if I want to survive."

Well. And also the people he needed to stay well away from if he wanted _them_ to survive, but he wasn't bringing up that branch of the family just now.

Evelyn scowled harder. "But you say there's no physical danger?"

Dorian shrugged. "Here, with the dread Inquisitor by my side to make sure I can't be made to disappear without a trace, no questions asked? No, no danger. I wouldn't care for my chances alone on a street in Minrathous, or back in my father's house in Qarinus."

Evelyn scowled until the expression broke into pure bafflement. "But--he's your _father_."

Dorian sighed. "He is. And I suppose I'd better go hear out whoever he's sent to retrieve me, if only to send back a strongly-worded refusal. Thank you for the warning. Cousin."

Dorian felt nearly calm, almost silly for overreacting to what would doubtless be nothing but a tedious interview with some hired mercenary--maybe Evelyn would be able to outbid Halward and recruit whoever it was to the Inquisition--until he actually walked into the Gull and Lantern with Evelyn at his back.

It was deserted, and he suddenly thought that he could feel a little tug in his chest, the reverse sensation of the threads that tied him to Molly and to Tally, his magic in their marks. It was scarcely a surprise at all when he heard a familiar footfall on the stairs--at least, not a surprise that his father was there.

Dorian _was_ a little surprised by how immediately and intensely he felt the urge to throw fireballs, and how vividly his father's handwritten notes were recalled to his mind's eye, along with a much more recently-received note with a scarcely legible HELLO PAPA scrawled down one side.

His father said, "Dorian?"

Softly, questioningly, as if they could _speak_ to each other, as if what lay between them could be _patched up_. As if it were _Dorian's_ forgiveness that Halward ought to be asking.

As if the passage of a few years meant that it no longer mattered that Halward had spent months planning to sacrifice the child he engendered, to kill Molly or just let her die while he murdered _Tally_ before she ever had a chance to be anyone at all--in order to remake Dorian into a perfectly obedient heir.

Dorian became aware that his outraged thoughts were blurring into a howl of inchoate wrath, and that once he wasn't thinking at all anymore, he wouldn't remember to hold himself back.

He clenched his fists and turned on his heel, pushing roughly past Evelyn as he strode out of the tavern.

* * *

Bull stayed just outside the door with Sera; neither of them was going to make any bones about eavesdropping as best they could. As it happened, there was no need. Bull heard Dorian and the boss take a few steps inside, heard Dorian ask warily if the place was normally so deserted, and then he heard someone say Dorian's name in an Altus accent, and he felt the air change.

Literally, his sense of the atmosphere changed. It felt like a storm was about to come down on them. Like lightning was about to start flying around, which, with Dorian, was a very real possibility; the Altus in there--Dorian's father himself, instead of a retainer?--was probably no slouch either. Probably not as experienced in combat as Dorian was after a year with the Inquisition, though.

Bull turned his head, to see if Sera felt what he felt and thought they'd better go in before the bloodbath got started, and then the tavern door burst open between them. Dorian stalked out in stiff, furious strides, radiating not just power but a kind of murderous rage that Bull had never seen in him, and hadn't particularly thought he was capable of. Somehow just by speaking his name, that Altus in there had tripped a trigger Bull hadn't known was even there in Dorian.

Bull knew families could be like that--one of the many reasons it was more sensible not to have them--but Dorian had spoken of his dad before in passing, and never showed a hint of _that_.

And yet it was there now, undeniable as a hurricane. Dorian stood in the middle of the street, trembling with the kind of fury that could have fueled a reaver; he had his fists clenched, but not a wisp of magic escaped him, not a spark. Bull had seen him set curtains on fire when he was out of his head, but now, driven to the brink of murder, nothing got away from him.

It was... pretty hot, really. That was a guy who probably actually could be trusted to stand there and say _no_ to desire demons all night long; he had a spine of fucking silverite, a whole different kind of strength from what Bull had seen when he fought.

The door banged open again, and Dorian didn't twitch, even when Evelyn darted out--even when the Altus who, yeah, looked to share enough obvious genetic characteristics with Dorian to be his dad, followed her.

"Dorian," Magister Halward Pavus said again, standing close enough that Bull could have dropped a hand on his shoulder without shifting his weight--the guy didn't even seem to notice him, he was so intent on Dorian. No combat instincts at all, there, missing the eight-foot Qunari in the room. "Please, I only want--"

"A second try?" Dorian snapped, finally turning around to face Halward. Dorian's cheeks were flushed red, his eyes bright; his lips kept pulling back in a silent snarl like he was ready to go at his father with his teeth. "No. Not again. You don't get another chance after that, Father. Disown me, tell everyone I've died down here, find some collateral heir who'll dance to your tune. It's nothing to me. But if I ever see your face again, at least one of us will not live to tell of it."

And with that Dorian turned on his heel and walked away, so thoroughly, furiously alive he seemed ten feet tall.

And really, _really_ hot.

Evelyn watched him go and then turned around and stared down Halward. For all she'd argued with Dorian back on the road, she obviously knew there was only one thing to say now, and she closed ranks like a champ. "If you hurt him I will kill you," she stated levelly, perfectly matter of fact. "So you're definitely not going to survive trying this again. You should probably go home now--I hear the South isn't a safe place for Tevinters."

Bull glanced over to see the man going pale under the olive-tan of his skin. He looked very old as he turned and went back into the tavern without a word, still without any sign of noticing Bull standing there. Bull could almost have felt bad for the guy, except he was pretty sure that whatever had made Dorian that angry, he had a point. Anyway, Bull already had a full complement of Vints to give a shit about; this one was out of luck.

* * *

They caught up with Dorian three miles back down the road home; he was still walking briskly but the crackling energy had dissipated. It was a little disappointing, but then again it wasn't like Bull could've hauled Dorian off into the bushes to fuck when he was like that. Probably. Bull definitely would have been willing to try, for the sake of team safety.

Even so, no one asked him any questions as Dorian mounted up and they continued down the road. Evelyn was all but wiggling in her saddle with curiosity, and Sera was watching him intently in a way that meant she definitely intended to find out. Bull just figured... sooner or later Dorian would let his guard down, and playing the odds, Bull could make a pretty safe bet that he'd be within hearing range when that happened.

They were within sight of camp when Dorian said abruptly, without looking at any of them, "You all know, of course, that I enjoy the company of men." Evelyn and Sera both looked from Dorian to Bull and back, and Evelyn nodded, frowning.

"That was not acceptable to my father," Dorian bit out. "If I had been willing to make the marriage arranged for me despite that, and to impregnate my bride as I was expected to, he might have overlooked it, but I would not, and so he did not. He meant to change my mind--literally, and permanently. You can imagine what sort of magic he would have had to use."

Blood magic, to so alter a person. Inasmuch as there was a range of atrocity within blood magic, it would have been much more on the "killing a load of slaves" end of the scale than "pricking his own finger." Bull could see that Evelyn and Sera hadn't had any trouble arriving at the same estimation. Evelyn looked horrified, Sera merely grim.

"So that's why," Dorian said, flatly, as if that was the entire story and not the kind of skimpy report that would get any Ben Hassrath yanked back to Par Vollen before the ink was dry on the orders. But that was all right; Bull could give Dorian a little time to settle, and then he'd know exactly where to probe to get the rest.

Or so he thought, until Dorian came to find him that night in camp, long after Bull thought he'd gone to bed. Apparently he'd just been waiting for Evelyn and Sera to turn in; he had a couple of bottles cradled in one arm, but hadn't bothered to bring anything smaller than a bottle to drink from. He sat down at a little distance from Bull and set the booze neatly at his feet. He didn't speak for a while, just stared at the bottles. Bull watched him without trying to conceal that that was what he was doing; Dorian had evidently wanted his undivided attention, so Bull wasn't going to pretend he didn't have it.

"Is there a word for," Dorian started, and then shook his head and made a frustrated noise. He sounded as if he'd already had a few drinks, but he wasn't far enough gone that Bull would have kicked him out of bed. Clearly he planned on having many more.

"There's lots of words," Bull offered, when Dorian said nothing. "Some of 'em in Qunlat, but we can work with that."

Dorian twitched a little, so, yeah, Bull hadn't imagined the kind of emphasis he'd put on _word_.

"You want a different word, for something else?" Bull prompted.

"No," Dorian said. "Or not really, or--I don't suppose it applies if we've both got our pants on, does it?"

Bull raised his eyebrows. "I don't care what we're wearing when you say _katoh_ , Dorian. It still means I stop, no questions asked."

"Yes, but what if that's not what I want you to stop? And what if I don't think I'll think to say it, so I have to say it in advance?" Dorian shook his head, hissed a curse and shifted his weight like he was going to grab his bottles and walk away, so Bull risked reaching out a hand to lay lightly on his arm.

That got Dorian to look at him, at least. "Of course you can say it in advance. It's called a limit. You know there's stuff you've said you don't want. You know I won't do that stuff."

Dorian shook his head again. "I just--I want to have a limit about what I say about my father," Dorian said. "About the rest of it, beyond what I told you all. Because I want to get very, very drunk and I don't particularly want to be alone while I'm doing it, but--there are things I cannot, must not tell anyone, and if I start talking about it, if I tell you any of it--"

Bull dropped his hand, and let Dorian see that he knew what Dorian meant, and he knew why Dorian felt like it was a lot to ask, and maybe too much. Bull certainly did want to know what the hell that was all about, and not even only because of his Ben-Hassrath-honed curiosity. It had obviously been a hell of a lot more than finding out his dad was an aspiring blood mage, to make him react like that; since Dorian was one of the Vints Bull did give a shit about, he wanted to make sure Dorian was okay. Or as close to okay as he could be, given the givens.

But Dorian had spent hours choosing his words, and didn't want to talk about it beyond that-- _must not_ talk about it, which was excruciatingly intriguing--and Bull wasn't the guy who conned people who trusted him. Not when they had the sense to ask him not to in advance, for sure, and not without a hell of a lot more reason to think it was important beyond the personal.

"Okay," Bull said. "Hard limit for conversations, especially if you're drinking. You start talking about your dad, what he did or was gonna do, any of that, I'll just say _katoh_ at you until you shut up. That work for you?"

Dorian stared up at him. "Really? You..."

Bull nodded. "If I can handle not getting my rocks off when you need me not to, I can handle not knowing a secret you need to keep. Everybody's allowed their secrets."

Dorian raised his eyebrows, a shadow of a wry smile on his lips. "Don't tell the Ben Hassrath that."

"I won't," Bull said agreeably, and didn't think about all the little things, here and there, he hadn't been telling Par Vollen for months now, subtly enough not to get pulled back at all. He scooted closer to Dorian instead, curling an arm around him, and Dorian leaned tentatively into his side and reached for a bottle.


	3. Chapter 3

The Iron Bull had always figured that if he went mad, he would know about it. He'd imagined something like a reaver rage that never ended, his thoughts a wild haze of sensations and anger. It was what seemed to have happened to most of the Tal-Vashoth he'd killed on Seheron; they seemed past reason, past thought.

Nothing like that followed when he became Tal-Vashoth. He just felt cold and sore and tired, even long after he'd dried off and slept and got back on the road with the boss and his boys. His thoughts were perfectly clear, perfectly reasonable, and it was entirely logical to assume that they wouldn't stay that way. He had to prepare Krem to take over the Chargers; he had to tell Dorian he could no longer be trusted. Bull brushed off the assassination attempts automatically; if he'd had time to think about it he might have let them succeed. That would have been a cleaner ending. 

But nothing ended. Krem wouldn't listen. Dorian would hardly even let him get the words out. Dorian kept coming to his bed, and Bull responded to him when he was there, gave him as much as he dared. And after, fucked out and exhausted, he felt a slightly warmer kind of tired, and maybe that was a sign of something. 

But the cold gray weariness always came back in the morning, and the perfectly logical expectation that he was going to lose his mind any day now didn't fade from his thoughts. There were good moments, and there were times when he made himself smile and act like the character he'd constructed for himself: _The Iron Bull_. 

And then one morning he woke up with Dorian curled beside him, tucked under one of his arms, and he could feel Dorian's skin against his with startling warm clarity, and it felt like breaking the surface of a cold dark sea. Like he'd been under water all this time, being slowly crushed, silently suffocating down there, and now--at least for a moment--he wasn't. 

Apparently you could go mad so quietly that you didn't even notice it yourself. And yet he still could have destroyed himself while he was down in that dark, thinking that he was doing the right thing, sparing everyone around him the trouble. He'd have been every bit as dead as if he'd disappeared into some blind rage and had to be put down. 

Bull let out a sigh and tightened his grip on Dorian a little. Dorian hummed drowsily and rubbed his nose against Bull's chest, and Bull smiled without even having to think about it. His mind started supplying images of pleasing ways to wake Dorian up without him even trying. 

_Kadan_ , he thought, and then he understood. 

He'd lost his center when he lost the Qun, and he'd been drowning, lost out in the cold, without it. But Dorian--and Krem, and the boss, and everyone else around him--had kept him on the right path until he found a center again. He might not be completely out of the woods--he couldn't believe the cold dark water would let him go so quietly, not when he had been sent into it by such a massive explosion--but at least now he would know what it was when it happened. 

He should tell Dorian what he'd realized, so Dorian would know too, but... maybe not just yet. He could have a secret again for a little while--a pleasing one this time, like a coal in his chest keeping him warm, a compass needle only he could see, keeping him pointed true. He knew he'd been lost, but he knew how to find his way now.

"Kadan," he whispered, trying it out.

Dorian lifted his head an inch without opening his eyes. "Hm? Bull?"

"Nothing," Bull murmured, guiding Dorian's head back down to the pillow with a gentle hand. "Go back to sleep, I'll wake you up in a bit."

Just as soon as he'd decided on the best way to do it.

* * *

If Dorian were a more superstitious person, and as egotistical as he sometimes purported to be, he might have believed that he brought the whole situation down upon himself, like the nemesis to some dramatic hero's hubris. 

Of course, that sort of hero generally committed a more impressive act of arrogance than standing in the sun on a clear morning, watching his lover grinning fiercely as he sparred and thinking, _We're going to be all right_. 

The Iron Bull had been made Tal-Vashoth weeks ago. Since then he'd shrugged off what he insisted were purely pro forma assassination attempts, and won Dorian a drink at Krem's expense by trying to convince Dorian to end their relationship more times over the course of a week than he attempted to place Krem in full command of the Chargers.

But Bull seemed to have come through the other side, finding his balance and beginning to believe that he wouldn't spontaneously succumb to violent madness. Watching him revel in a fight, Dorian felt like he could take a full breath for the first time in a very long time, and let himself smile in a way he'd deny later, if anyone asked.

He thought the elbow in his ribs was Sera's response to the smile, but when he looked over at her she was frowning past him. He followed her gaze to a runner trotting toward them--neither rushing nor sauntering, so the errand was of some interest but not life-threateningly urgent. 

The young woman had a professionally neutral expression, nearly, as she stepped up to Dorian's side, but there was a hint of amusement at the corners of her mouth. "Inquisitor requests your presence, ser. Some merchant's turned up with a letter that he says he can only put into your hands--and a kid in tow who he says is supposed to be your daughter."

The calculation flashed through his mind faster than words--if Molly had sent Tally and a letter, or if Tally and a letter were all that was left--something was _very, very wrong_.

He didn't make a scene, didn't react in any way that reflected the feeling of having been struck by lightning out of a clear sky. He only straightened up sharply and said, "Where?"

Even that was enough to wipe any hint of amusement from the runner's face; she jerked a thumb over her shoulder and said, in a much smaller voice, "Inquisitor's office, ser."

Dorian was past her before she'd finished speaking, taking long strides but not letting himself run. Whatever had happened must have happened days or weeks ago, and if Tally was here, in Skyhold already, then she was physically safe; a few more minutes would make no difference.

That resolve lasted him across a courtyard and through the hall, but when he reached the stairs up to the Inquisitor's rooms, he took them two and then three at a time. He was faintly aware that someone--a number of someones--was coming up the stairs on his heels, but he had no attention for anything but Tally--Tally alone, Tally _sent to him_ , _his daughter_. 

The door to the Inquisitor's office was standing open; Cullen was leaning against the jamb, maybe talking to someone inside. He jerked to attention and jumped back out of the way as Dorian came barreling toward him, and Dorian came to a sharp stop at the sight of Evelyn, Josephine, Leliana, and Varric all standing there together. There was no sign of Tally, or a merchant with a letter.

"Where," Dorian repeated, unable to find enough words to be charming or eloquent or even coherent. 

Behind him in the corridor he heard the clatter of more than one person in practice armor coming to a halt--Cassandra said, "Why did we just do that, exactly?" and Bull said something Dorian didn't catch the words of, because Evelyn was frowning at him, baffled.

"Dorian? Did the runner say something wrong? We're just trying to figure out why this merchant thinks you have a wife named _Molly Pavus_ and this kid--"

"I imagine he thinks that because my wife is indeed named Molly Pavus," Dorian said, still very flatly, but he was aware of everyone in the room and the hall outside all falling silent. He spoke into that ringing emptiness. "Now, _where is my daughter._ "

Evelyn's eyes were wide and fixed on him, but she pointed toward the closed door of a little sitting room that adjoined her office. Dorian pivoted to it and then forced himself to stop short at the door and take a breath.

Tally would already be frightened and confused enough. He didn't need to make it worse by rushing at her, barking questions. He hadn't seen her in nearly two years; she likely didn't remember him at all, from one afternoon half her life ago. He must go carefully.

His chest ached with every deep, deliberate breath, as if the thread of magic connecting his house mark to hers was pulled tight.

He opened the door with a shaking hand, and was greeted with the sight of Cole sitting sideways on a sofa, playing a hand-clapping game of some sort with a dark-haired girl--all at once terrifyingly tiny and so much bigger than he remembered--with a beauty mark high on her left cheek, just beside her eye.

Cole looked toward him when Dorian closed the door behind him, and then Tally did. Her eyes went wide--surprise, excitement, fear?--and she stood up, smoothing her dress down with a gesture he recognized as Molly's. She began, in careful Tevene, "Salve, Pater--"

"Tally," Dorian said, stumbling into the room and falling to his knees to look into her jade-green eyes, just the same color as Molly's. "The last I heard, you were calling me Papa. That will do well enough now, don't you think?"

Tally bit her lip and took a half-step forward, reaching out with a finger. Dorian held perfectly still as she traced the curves of his moustache, just as she had on that Summerday. 

"Papa," she said, sounding so much more like a _person_ than the mostly-baby he remembered, her gaze fixed on his moustache rather than meeting his eyes. "You made snow for me out of magic."

Dorian swallowed hard before he could speak, trying to keep his smile gentle and resisting the urge to crush her to his chest. "I did, yes. It was a hot day. Do you remember that? Or did your mama tell you about it?"

Tally's eyes flitted to his and then away at the mention of her mother, and her voice was smaller when she said, "I remember."

And she must, of course, because she'd greeted him just the same way, recognizing his moustache if nothing else. "Tally," he made his voice as gentle as he could, "when did you last see your mama?"

Tally glanced away, at the other person in the room, who Dorian hadn't even noticed--though he did notice now that Cole, still seated, had stretched his legs out between Dorian and Tally and the stranger, making a barricade much more meaningful than it looked. The man--the merchant who the runner and Evelyn had mentioned, presumably--looked weary, road-dusty and impatient but not unkind for all that. Tally wasn't afraid of him; she was looking to him for help answering Dorian's question.

"Molly--Ma'am Pavus, that is, ser--parted ways from us this morning. She came nearly all the way up the mountain with us, but--" the merchant looked at Tally, a little uneasily, and visibly left out much of what he would have said if he weren't in the presence of Molly's child. 

"Well, this morning, first thing, she asked me and m'wife if we wouldn't mind bringing her the rest of the way to her Pa, and we said it was no trouble--Tally's a good little girl, and our Annie liked having company on the wagon. M'wife is handling the delivery of our goods, and I figured I'd just bring the tyke along, and the letter. Didn't know it was going to be all this."

Dorian glanced at Cole, raising his eyebrows. Cole nodded.

Right, no need to detain the merchant any further to get the rest of the story, then.

"I do apologize for the fuss," Dorian said. "And I thank you for bringing my daughter safely to me. And the letter?"

"Right!" The man dug in a pouch at his belt and pulled out the letter, looking not much worse for wear than Molly's letters usually did by the time he received them. She'd only written _Dorian Pavus_ on the front, with no other direction. She hadn't planned to explain things in a letter; she had meant to come with Tally to him, and then... something had happened this morning, something which even Cole knew not to blurt out in front of Tally.

Dorian tucked the letter into a pocket and focused on Tally again. She had one hand wound into her skirt, and was looking uncomfortable and uncertain in a slightly different way than she had before. Dorian thought back to that Summerday, and his time with Molly, and considered the possibilities.

Then he considered what was the politest way to ask a child if she needed to use the privy--but Tally had grown up thus far in Ferelden. She likely wouldn't recognize the euphemisms he'd grown up with, even if he translated them into the common tongue, and if there was a delicate way to refer to such necessities in the common tongue, Dorian couldn't recall ever hearing it.

Resigning himself to southern frankness on the topic, Dorian said, "Do you need the privy?"

Tally looked startled and then relieved, and nodded. Dorian looked around, considering the layout of Evelyn's rooms. She had a private garderobe, and the other door from this room ought to lead in the right direction without taking them out through the crowd in Evelyn's office. On the other hand, that door was likely locked, and Dorian suspected time might well be of the essence.

Cole stood in a fluid movement and went to the other door; Dorian didn't see what he did, but he opened it nearly as easily as if it hadn't been locked at all, and gestured through. "End of the hall on the left."

Cole, since becoming more human than spirit, had become very aware of the location of every privy around Skyhold. Time had often been of the essence for him, too, as he got used to his body. Still was, for all Dorian knew. For now Dorian merely nodded his thanks and scooped Tally up to settle on his hip. For a moment it was disorienting how much bigger she was, and then it just felt like carrying Tally. 

She slung her arm around his neck just as she had before, so apparently it felt familiar to her, too. 

Dorian got her to the correct door within a very few minutes, and indulged himself in casting a quick glance down through the seat to assure himself that, as he remembered, there was a grating beneath so that it _wasn't_ actually possible for a small person to fall through and off the tower entirely. Only then did he set Tally on her feet in the little closet-sized space.

"Do you need, ah--"

Tally gave him an exasperated look which made her look so much like Molly that it hurt a little to look at her. "I know how, Papa."

She glanced around after she'd said it, and Dorian figured an orientation to the specifics wouldn't hurt.

"Rags," he said, pointing to the basket. "Pot where you put the used rags. Make sure the lid is back on when you're done. There's a washstand in the next room so you can clean your hands."

Tally nodded again, and Dorian backed out and shut the door. He took a couple of steps away--near enough to hear a shout, far enough for at least a nod to privacy, which Tally's expression had seemed to ask for. He concentrated on filling the basin with water and then warming it, casting the spells across the distance with carefully moderated intensity.

There was some rattling and thumping and one brief yelp, but Tally was all in once piece and not visibly soiled when she opened the door and came back out. Dorian ushered her to the washstand with a grandiose gesture, and she flashed a smile at him as she scampered over to wash her hands, demonstrating a reassuring fluency with the procedure. 

Fereldans, after all. One never knew.

When Tally's hands were dry and she was looking up at him expectantly, there was no more reason to put it off. He scooped her up and settled her on his hip again as he turned back toward Evelyn's office, not at all in the manner he might grab the nearest sturdy object for a makeshift shield in a nasty fight.

"Would you like to meet the Inquisitor, carissima? She's a friend of mine, you know, I work with her."

It sounded more like bragging than the explanation Dorian had intended, but Tally nodded agreeably and leaned against his shoulder. Dorian carried her back to the little anteroom--Cole and the merchant were both gone, so Dorian's strategic retreat had also solved the problem of what to do with the unfortunate messenger. 

No one else had departed, however. The entire senior echelon of the Inquisition were assembled in Evelyn's office--and there was his _punishment_ for the strategic retreat, because in his absence there had evidently been time for Vivienne to hear about the situation and come to investigate.

Bull was near the open door to the corridor, arms folded over his chest. 

Dorian didn't even try to meet his eyes, aiming himself firmly toward Evelyn. He knew how to describe Evelyn. He could manage the others. He had no idea what word he might apply to Bull when speaking to a child. She likely was as aware as any Fereldan child of the different combinations of genders who made up perfectly normal relationships, but he felt a native unease at the thought of speaking of a male lover to her.

If Bull was even going to be that, after today. Dorian didn't want to know what Bull would think of him now that he knew what Dorian had been lying about--a child, a wife, a secret he'd never trusted any of his friends with though it was occurring to him now that he could and should have. And even if Bull somehow wasn't angry--clearly Dorian's life had just become awfully crowded, and likely wouldn't have much room for his and Bull's arrangement. He certainly couldn't expect Bull to try to accommodate him--or perhaps Bull would be happy to, and simply return to taking any other willing person in Skyhold to his bed when Dorian was busy. 

Dorian felt a little sick at the prospect, but he had no time to dwell on it. He was standing before Evelyn with his daughter perched on his arm.

Evelyn had gotten her face under control, and was now giving him and Tally an attentive and friendly expression he'd seen her turn on possibly-hostile strangers all over Thedas.

"Tally," he said, realizing the precedence decision he'd made as he spoke. Too late to change direction now. "This is Evelyn Trevelyan, the Inquisitor, my dear friend, and incidentally a distant relation of ours. Evelyn, allow me to present my daughter, Euthalia Pavus, known to her friends and family as Tally. She's been living with her mother for the last few years, but Molly's sent her to stay with me for a while. I apologize for the, ah, disruption. I wasn't expecting Tally to arrive just now."

Evelyn's expression softened a little as her eyes settled on Tally, and thankfully no one started shouting questions Dorian couldn't answer. In fact, the room maintained a breath-held silence, which was... worse, in some ways, but at least didn't make things immediately awkward or frightening for Tally.

"It's nice to meet you, Cousin Tally," Evelyn said, offering her hand to shake, which Tally promptly did. "Welcome to Skyhold. We'll have to find some nicer rooms for you and your papa--you might have to sleep in a dresser drawer if he stays in the one he's got now."

"I don't fit in a drawer anymore," Tally said, like that was a perfectly reasonable possibility and not Evelyn gently teasing. "I'm big now. I can sleep on the floor, though."

Evelyn shot a glance at Dorian, sharing an uncomfortable awareness of how different Tally's upbringing thus far had been from either of theirs, but she said only, "I think we can find you your very own bed. Would you like that?"

Tally nodded, then said hesitantly, fingers curling into Dorian's collar as she spoke, "Not too far from Papa?"

"No, carissima, you'll be with me," Dorian said firmly, squeezing her more firmly against his side. He twisted a little as he did, to face Josephine, and braced himself to make the rest of the introductions.

* * *

When Dorian stepped through the door to the room that held _his daughter_ , every eye in the room turned on Bull; he could feel it like a weight, like a massed shout, but they were all silent. 

They were all waiting for him to explain what the fuck was going on here. Because he would know, of course. This was Dorian. Bull was closer to him than any of them, at least in some ways, and Bull was, had until recently been, Ben Hassrath. Bull knew people's secrets. Bull didn't get taken completely by surprise by almost anyone. He shouldn't have been able to be taken by surprise by Dorian, not about something this important.

Bull didn't look back at all those waiting gazes, and didn't say a word, because this time, he was completely fucking surprised. Also, because he was keeping all his senses trained on that door, and what was happening beyond it. He heard a child's voice speaking careful, polite Tevene, and Dorian interrupting in the gentlest tone Bull had ever heard him use. Telling her to call him _Papa_ , like she had the last time they saw each other. 

He heard Dorian ask her if she really remembered him, or if he was only a story her mother had told her, and--okay, Bull could piece this together. She might not be Dorian's actual kid in the biological sense. How could she be? Dorian had exiled himself from Tevinter, Dorian _threatened to kill his own father_ , over his father's attempts to try to force him to marry and father a child. Clearly he wouldn't have turned around and done that very thing of his own accord. Not really. 

So it was something else, something complicated, some favor he'd done for a friend, maybe. Now shit had gone down and she'd sent the kid to him, and that made sense. There was plenty of shit going down in plenty of places, and Skyhold was well known to be one of the few real strongholds where people could take refuge. 

This kid was scared and alone and Dorian was being kind to her; he was worried for her and her mom. That made sense. 

Bull still didn't look around, because he wasn't going to offer anybody his frantic two-minute deductions when it would all be obvious in another minute, when--

Dorian stepped out to face them with the kid on his arm.

With his daughter on his arm. She looked so much like him there was no mistaking the genetic relationship; she had Dorian's dark hair, a mirror version of the beauty mark on Dorian's cheek, almost exactly the same light eyes. Her _mouth_ was the same shape as Dorian's. And--Bull glanced toward Cullen for confirmation of his own suspicion, and got it in the tiny worried frown he was turning on the kid--he'd bet his other _eye_ she was a mage, already reaching through the Veil before she was old enough to use a privy without supervision. 

Bull watched Dorian, and he saw Dorian not looking in his direction at all as he stepped forward to introduce the kid to Evelyn. He fully turned his back on Bull to introduce her to Josephine, and Bull watched Josephine looking over Dorian's shoulder at him as they spoke. He watched Dorian not follow her gaze, not so much as twitch in Bull's direction, though Dorian would never miss what Josephine was trying to indicate to him.

So: Dorian didn't want to look. He didn't want to see Bull standing there. Didn't want his kid to notice the eight-foot-tall Tal-Vashoth in the room. 

Just like he hadn't wanted Bull to know she existed. Still didn't want Bull anywhere near her, and it wasn't like there weren't good reasons for that. Bull could see that perfectly clearly. Dorian wasn't even wrong. He had a kid to think about; he could risk himself with some maybe-crazy Tal-Vashoth, but his kid was a whole different thing. Dorian would never put his kid in danger. She'd been sent to Skyhold to be safe.

Well. There was a pretty fucking simple way to solve that problem. Bull turned away and headed back down the stairs. He'd been in the middle of training. His boys would need him, or at least have a space for him. 

Maybe he'd ask Krem one more time if he didn't think it would be better if he were in charge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to assure you: _Molly is fine._ Molly is not dying at this time. Or ever.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mention of animal death (and reference to my favorite gruesome linguistics example sentence).

Dorian carefully did not respond to Josephine's obvious looks in Bull's direction; he knew perfectly well that proper precedence would demand he introduced Tally to Bull second after the Inquisitor, if not first. Or it would, if anything about Bull's place in his life was proper, or precedented, or in any other way something he could put into words. 

Josephine seemed to let it go at that, greeting Tally kindly, but as Dorian turned to introduce his daughter to Leliana next, Josephine's eyes went wide in a less-calculated gaze over Dorian's shoulder. 

Dorian did look then, but saw only the absence of a qunari near the door. Bull was gone, out of sight before Dorian had even turned. 

_Fasta vass._ Dorian refocused on Leliana and Tally, not letting Tally see anything in his expression that might worry her. 

If Bull were an entirely different person, Dorian could think it was pique at not being shown the particular favor of being introduced sooner, but Bull wasn't so highly strung. It was something Dorian might do, if their positions were reversed and he was being particularly obtuse that day, but Bull never minded things like that, and never responded with some dramatic gesture when he did see a problem. 

Even his reaction to becoming Tal-Vashoth had been quiet and calm; for all he'd insisted that he might go mad at any moment, he'd done even that patiently. And now he was doing better, and of course he wouldn't want to waste that on a liar who would have no time for him.

Dorian did what he had learned to do by the time he was Tally's age, in the face of anything that upset him: he smiled and said polite, charming things that even he barely heard. He introduced Tally to Vivienne, who was grand and serious but not impatient or unkind; to Varric, who was friendly and easy with her in a way Dorian desperately wished he could be himself; to Sera, who acted only a little bit as if a small human Tevinter child was a dangerous animal she couldn't show fear in front of, which Dorian entirely sympathized with; to Cassandra, who was much more at ease with a little girl than Dorian would have expected.

Cassandra did excuse herself as soon as the introduction was complete, and Dorian glanced around to realize that most of the others had left the office while he was making his round--only Evelyn and Leliana remained, Evelyn perched on her desk while Leliana bent down beside her, writing something under Evelyn's eye. And there was Cullen, once again leaning in the doorway, casually blocking Dorian's exit and frowning a little.

Dorian was abruptly very conscious of being a mage in the south facing a southern templar. His grip on Tally tightened instinctively as Cullen straightened up and took a step closer, but Dorian kept up the same cheerful façade he'd presented with everyone else. 

"Tally, this is Commander Rutherford. He is in command of the Inquisition's army and sometimes deigns to play chess with your papa. Cullen, my daughter, Tally."

"Hello, Tally," Cullen said, offering his hand to shake, which Tally did with pleased solemnity as she had with the other adults who had done the same. "You take after your papa a great deal, don't you?"

Something in the deliberately amiable tone of Cullen's words made the hair stand up on the back of Dorian's neck. He looked down at Tally as she looked up at him, then back to Cullen. "Mama says I look a lot like my papa."

"You certainly do," Cullen said. "And you're like him in another way, too, aren't you?"

Tally shrunk against Dorian suddenly, and Dorian curled his other arm protectively around her and said, "Naturally she also shares my brilliance, Cullen, which is why I shall look after her education personally."

Cullen, for his part, took a half-step back, raising his hands in a gesture of harmlessness, but he'd made his point. He was still templar enough to know a mage when he saw one, and he obviously recognized Tally as one--which meant that her ability was no longer strictly a matter of potential, something Dorian might have noticed properly himself if he'd had ten consecutive seconds to focus on anything but the most immediate concerns. 

"If you'll excuse me," Dorian said. "I believe--"

"Tally could probably use something to eat, and you could both use a chance to catch up with each other," Josephine said, smoothly interrupting him as she came in with a tray. "Why don't you and Tally take the sitting room for now. Your new rooms will be ready for you shortly." 

She headed into the side room where Tally had awaited him without waiting for a reply, and Dorian nodded a wary farewell to Cullen and followed her. Josephine set the tray down, gave Dorian a smile that was a little too kind--too conscious of Dorian being in need of her kindness just now--and slipped out again without saying anything, closing the door behind her.

Dorian sat down where Tally had been sitting when he came in, settling Tally on his lap as he did. She stayed pressed close against him, too close for him to see her face.

"Carissima," he said gently, "Did Commander Rutherford frighten you somehow?"

Her little shoulders went up and down in a stiff shrug.

"Did you think," Dorian said carefully, "that he might be talking about you taking after me in another way? As a mage, perhaps?"

Tally tried to curl down even smaller against him.

"Euthalia," Dorian said, trying for the right tone though he didn't know what the right tone was, only that it mustn't be as shaky and desperate as he felt. "You know I'm a mage--you remember the magic I did for you. If you can do things too, that's--" worrying, that it had started so very early, but all the same, "wonderful, and just what your mama and I expected of you."

"But it _wasn't_ ," Tally wailed against his chest, the dam finally breaking. "It was _bad_ \--we had to _leave_ , everyone was scared! Scared of me, because I did--I did _bad Vint magic_ and--"

" _Euthalia_ ," Dorian moved her firmly back so that he could see her face, which only crumpled at his sharp tone as she dissolved into tears.

"Oh, Tally," he said, much more softly, and pulled her close again, rocking a little. The motion was awkward at first, and then his body remembered the rhythm of it somehow, swaying in time with his hand rubbing up and down her shuddering back just as he'd soothed her the night after she was born. 

"You didn't do anything wrong," Dorian said softly. "And you shouldn't call yourself, or your papa, names like that, you know. We are Tevinters of House Pavus, and we are proud of our heritage, even if we are far from home just now."

"But I, I--" Tally couldn't speak, sobbing again, and Dorian went on holding her, waiting and wishing painfully that Molly were here. Molly would know what to do.

Except, he was beginning to realize, Molly had brought Tally to him precisely because she _hadn't_ known what to do. For Tally to have shown her magical ability so young, it must have been some uncontrolled emotionally-driven burst, which would of course be frightening to Molly and to Tally herself, let alone the innocent southern bystanders. 

Dorian closed his eyes and hoped devoutly that she hadn't killed anyone. It was... not unknown, in Tevinter. 

He had a sudden, horribly vivid memory of being a child, still in the nursery, trembling with rage over something or other, and his nanny, an elven slave, saying gently, "But you wouldn't want to hurt me, would you, dear one? You could hurt me very, very badly if you don't control yourself. So you must be very quiet and still." 

And he hadn't wanted to hurt Nanny, had been sick inside with guilt at the very thought--he had known, even then, how brutally a slave could be hurt--so he had been very quiet and very still. 

But woe betide any nanny whose charge didn't care quite so deeply about her, or who was less deft in training an Altus child to control themselves before they got worked up enough to reach the Fade on sheer unformed will. Dorian had a new and skin-crawling awareness of precisely why Altus children were so universally attended by slaves in their early childhoods. 

Tally was quieting, possibly from sheer exhaustion; it must have been a very long and stressful day already for her. Reminded, Dorian turned to look for the tray Josephine had brought in and picked up an attractive little cake. 

"Here, carissima, would you like a taste of this?"

Tally sniffled but deigned to take a bite, and by the time she'd chewed and swallowed she seemed to be breathing easier. He tilted the cake toward her, and she took it from his hands and took another bite without prompting. 

Dorian poured from the jug on the tray into the diminutive mug Josephine had found somewhere. He sniffed it--some sort of cold sweetened tisane--and offered it to Tally as well. She handed back the half of the cake still in her hands, which was rather... damp... but took the mug and drank deeply, then took the cake back off his palm with one hand and held on to the mug with the other.

Dorian grabbed a cloth to wipe the crumbs and general wet stickiness off his hand, and poured himself a cup of the tisane. Tally let out a sigh, and Dorian looked down to see that she'd finished the cake--or at least, all of it that she hadn't eaten was reduced to crumbs distributed over the front of her dress. Dorian judged that now was not the time to make a fuss about personal tidiness; he gave Tally's front a cursory swipe with the napkin and settled her closely against him again.

"Do you think you could tell me what happened, carissima? I won't be frightened, you know. I'm a mage, too, and I understand that you can sometimes do things without knowing quite how or even why you did them."

Tally tensed again, but less than before, with food and drink inside her and the first burst of catharsis spent. "There was..." 

She sniffled, and wiped the hand no longer occupied with cake across her face, coming away with a truly appalling streak of mucus and tears down her sleeve. Well, the dress would need washing in any case. Dorian still tried to arrange them so he wouldn't brush up against that part of her sleeve, without being obvious.

"There was a cat," Tally said, a bit more steadily. "She was so pretty, Papa, she was all different colors and she would rub against me and purr. She _liked_ me and--and--" A stray sob shook Tally, and Dorian caught the mug before she dropped it--mostly empty, thankfully, so it didn't spill before he could set it aside. 

"And then one day she--she didn't come to see me and I looked for her and--she was-- _in the road_ \--"

These words rose into another wail, and Dorian winced. The cat had not, he gathered, been standing unharmed in the road. 

"And you were very upset about that, I'm sure," Dorian murmured.

"I just," Tally said, "I just _didn't want her to be dead_. I wanted her to _come back_. And then I--I just--reached for her and--"

Well. She did take after him, then, even more than Cullen likely knew. It wasn't at all the usual sort of first accidental working, but then it was only natural that Euthalia Doria Pavus would be extraordinary. 

"Did she come back, then?" Dorian asked, striking what he thought was a creditable tone of collegial interest in her work. "Did she stay long?"

"She was all sort of--shining and purple," Tally said. "She was _beautiful_ , but then someone screamed and--a lot of people screamed, and Mama grabbed me and pulled me away from her and," Tally swallowed audibly and wound a fist--how else but damply and stickily--into Dorian's sleeve. "And then we had to go away."

"I do see," Dorian said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and resigning himself to the laundry situation, "and I must tell you again, carissima--you didn't do anything wrong. Your magic is just as it should be, and..." 

His own throat went tight, but he managed to keep speaking. An early training in pretending not to feel anything too strongly was useful in more than one way, perhaps. "And _you_ are just as you should be, and I would never, _never_ want you to be any different than you are. You are my daughter, Tally Pavus, and there is nothing wrong with you, do you understand me?"

He'd gotten a little intense by the end of that speech; Tally drew back enough to look up at him with wide eyes, but she nodded and didn't start crying again.

"Did anyone tell you the name of the kind of magic you did?" Dorian asked, in a calmer tone.

Tally shook her head, biting her lip and looking troubled again. 

"Magic having to do with the dead, causing them to rise in some fashion, is called necromancy. It is very complex and quite difficult, and it is one of your papa's specialties."

Tally's mouth dropped open, eyes going wide in an expression of utter, unabashed wonder. " _You_ do that?"

Dorian nodded solemnly. "When I'm helping the Inquisitor. I've done it many times." 

Tally's fascinated look turned to something like pleading, and Dorian added hastily, "Not with cats, though. It... doesn't last, carissima. It can't. There are--" He swallowed again, looking into his daughter's eyes, so like her mother's. "There are things that even magic cannot do. Things it _should_ not be used for, even if we could find a way to do it. Do you understand?"

She nodded a bit doubtfully, and Dorian at least recognized that it was ridiculous to demand that a child entirely untrained in magic should understand what--to name just one example--Halward Pavus never truly had.

"It's all right," Dorian said, tearing his gaze from Tally's and forcing himself to ease his posture to something less on edge. "Would you like some more to drink? Another cake?"

Tally reached for a little confection with pink icing--something Bull would have been absurdly delighted by, but Dorian shut that thought off without hesitation, having nothing left in him to cope with wondering about Bull right now. He sat very still and kept very quiet, holding Tally, and put off everything else for a little longer.

* * *

They moved into a pair of rooms--with, bless Josephine, a garderobe--that afternoon, transferring all of Dorian's things from his room. Dorian was glad to discover that the merchant who delivered Tally had also brought along a small bundle of her things, so she was not without, for instance, a change of clothes or a nightshirt. 

She also had a slightly ragged gray-brown object which Dorian recognized, eventually, as a stuffed mabari--like the nugs Krem made, except that it had suffered some years of possession by a small child. The soft fabric was worn nearly through in places, and one seam had been repaired messily, with thread that didn't match.

"Mama said you could fix Fido," Tally told him. "He got ripped while we were on our way here, and she couldn't make the seam nice, but she said you would."

Dorian's recollections of traveling with Molly--while she was eight months pregnant and fleeing for her life--suggested that it would take more than that to have her do such a haphazard job of fixing something as important as Tally's clearly beloved, if revolting, toy. 

_Fido_. In the common tongue, _I keep faith_ \--and there were precious few who Molly and Tally could have faith in. 

"I shall take the very best care of him," Dorian assured her, and took the thing gingerly in both hands. Tally watched him for a moment as if to be sure she could trust him with Fido, and then trotted away to climb up on his bed and peer out a window. 

Dorian dug his little repair kit out of his pack--he usually only mended his own clothing on the road--and sat down at a table with good light. He ripped out the clumsy stitches, then took another glance to be sure Tally wasn't watching, and shoved his fingers inside the toy, squeezing it with his other hand and hoping he wouldn't have to pull all the stuffing out.

He found it promptly, and realized what it must be even before he worked the little flat object free. He had left his birthright amulet tucked into Euthalia's swaddling clothes when he first parted from them; Molly had insisted that he take a share of her jewelry to support himself until he found work, and Dorian had had to admit the logic of it. Still, he had wanted Molly to have something that gave her another set of opportunities. He'd also liked the idea of Euthalia having some sign of her birthright she could display more easily than the mark on her chest. 

And she still had it: Molly had found a way to return the amulet to him without having to impress upon Tally that this was a very valuable item she must not lose, or risk it being stolen if Tally carried it openly. 

Dorian set the amulet aside--he could put it into the locked box for safekeeping, for now--and returned the bit of stuffing that had escaped before he began repairing the seam. 

"Would you like to see Papa do a very little bit of magic?" Dorian called out, looking at the sturdy black thread in his kit. Tally raced over to him at once, and leaned against his side while he cut a length of thread and draped it over Fido. "See if you can sense it, carissima."

Dorian made a deliberately showy gesture, and the thread glowed briefly; when the glow faded, the thread had nearly vanished into the toy, the color perfectly matched. 

"Can't you just magic it back together?" Tally asked, leaning comfortably against his thigh as Dorian threaded a needle and chose the best spot to start.

"There are people who are very skilled in that type of magic, but I am not one of them," Dorian said. It was probably good for both of them, to hear Dorian admit his shortcomings. He'd gotten better at that, these last few years in the south. "It requires very fine control to act so precisely on something so small, without having any power spill over as heat that would damage the cloth. We don't want to risk starting a fire, do we?"

Tally's eyes went wide and she shook her head.

"Now that I think of it, though..." It was a classic for a reason, wasn't it? And he had to start Tally's proper education somewhere. He reached for the candle set on the table in a little ceramic holder, moving it close to Tally. "Have you done any other magic, since the cat?"

Tally shook her head. "Mama told me I mustn't. She--she said--but I _didn't_ ," Tally said, crumpling a little.

Dorian thought he saw where this was going, and he ran a caressing hand over her hair, hoping to head off more tears. "That's not why your mama had to go away, carissima. You didn't do anything wrong, remember? Even if people don't understand what they see you doing, it isn't wrong to do magic, and there's no shame in doing something accidentally before you've learned better. You didn't hurt anyone."

Tally shrugged a little, and Dorian began to stitch as he went on, "But if you don't want to have another accident like that, then you need to work on learning to understand and control your magic. When you know how to do it on purpose, it's easier to avoid doing it by mistake. So I want you to try to reach for fire, the way you reached for the cat when you wanted her to be alive, do you understand? You pulled magic through the Veil, from the Fade, when you made the cat get back up, and you can do the same with other things. With fire."

Tally gave him a wide-eyed look, glancing worriedly from the candle to Fido. "I don't want to start a fire!"

"Mm, well," Dorian said. "Perhaps that is prudent, carissima." 

He set Fido down and cut another length of black thread. "Why don't you try to persuade this to be another color, then, like I just did? You can make it match something, or just imagine a color. Reach for that color, and try to bring it into the world, make it real. Do you understand?"

Tally took the thread, and went and climbed up into the other chair at the table. She spread the thread out before her and knelt up on the chair, arms folded on the edge of the table, frowning down at the thread.

She still might start a fire, but that was all right; Dorian was quick with a variety of spells he could use for extinguishing as well as minor healing. 

He made quick work of repairing Fido's seam while Tally alternated waving her hands over the thread in childish imitation of his own gesture, and just scowling at it. Dorian finished the mending and moved around the room quietly, setting things to rights; he _felt_ the little yank on the Fade as much as he heard the crackle of energy and, a half-second later, Tally's excited yelp. 

He hurried over to her to see her waving a length of brilliantly purple thread between her hands, and picked her up to twirl her around in a hug. Perhaps he could manage this business of looking after a child, after all.

Approximately five minutes later, he had to unwind the purple thread from around Tally's finger, which was turning cold from blocked circulation. Tally was screaming and sobbing the entire time, fighting him, and as he dodged her surprisingly sharp elbows, Dorian was forced to reconsider whether he could even keep them both alive until morning.

* * *

Dorian cautiously peeled himself away from Tally, who, after an hour of intermittent raging and crying, was at last asleep with Fido clamped firmly under her arm. She was curled up in the welter of disarranged covers on the bed that was meant to be Dorian's, but Dorian had no interest in attempting to move her to the other room and the bed that was meant to be hers--not when it meant risking waking her up again in the process. 

He went only as far as the little table, lighting the candle there with a careless flick of his fingers--it was getting dark already, though that was partly because these rooms faced somewhat southeasterly. His former room had had a north-facing window, which meant his bed was warmed and lit by all the sunlight Skyhold could offer. 

Dorian withdrew Molly's letter from his pocket and just stared at it for a moment. It was scarcely evening and he already felt almost too exhausted to face whatever was left for him to find out. 

He couldn't put it off, though. Cole's reaction had indicated that there was _something_ to know about why, having come practically to the gates of Skyhold, Molly had turned back and sent Tally on alone. A reason that fell into Cole's domain--pain and the relieving of it. Dorian braced himself and opened the letter.

_My dear husband,_

_You did say that Tally ought to have a father particularly to call upon when her magic turned up. With the Circles dissolved I'd have to bring her to Skyhold anyway--it's the only place where mages are gathered together in any kind of organized way anywhere south of the Waking Sea._

_I meant to come with her and stay. I thought I could make myself useful at Skyhold somehow, and then I'd be able to see her sometimes at least_

Dorian physically jerked back from the letter, and the implication that, had Molly come with Tally to Skyhold, Tally wouldn't have lived with her mother, or with both of them if Molly was willing to set up a household with Dorian so that he could be on hand more readily. He scanned over the letter again, searching for some idea as to why, and his eye caught on her mention of the Circles.

They were in Ferelden, and even if Molly had grown up in Tevinter she had to be aware of how the training of young mages was done here in the south--or how it had been done, when the Circles were in place. Fereldan children who showed the power Tally had abruptly manifested would be whisked away from their families immediately, sent off to a Circle from which they might never emerge except as a corpse--or a Tranquil, which was nearly the same thing.

Dorian knew that there were children among the congregation of mages who Evelyn had adopted into the Inquisition. The mages had taken over one tower and all lived and worked there together--and part of what they must work at, logically, was training up the young ones for their Harrowings. 

Were any of them as young as Tally? For that matter, who was taking up the training of every other Fereldan child whose magic burst out of them this past year? Were they being left with their parents, apostates by default and with no education, and family who knew no more than they did? Were children packed off to Skyhold as if it were a Circle?

He ought to have known, but he'd thought he had time before it was a real concern. He'd vaguely assumed that Tally wouldn't show magic any younger than he had--at seven, he'd been considered fairly precocious. But he'd also been carefully trained--one might even say, ruthlessly manipulated--to be sure he would never manifest his magic in an emotional outburst as Tally had, while Tally hadn't had anyone to teach her anything at all.

Dorian looked at her, sleeping limply, and felt a flicker of unease at the thought of where her dreams might be taking her while he sat here and fretted about her education. 

He turned his eyes down to the letter almost as an afterthought, half his attention still on Tally, alert for any sense of--wrongness. 

_I'd be able to see her sometimes at least, but the truth is that she frightened me with her magic. It felt so much like her father's._

Dorian swallowed hard, feeling sick as he remembered the way Molly had flinched from his harmless little tricks with lights and snow, two years ago at Summerday. He'd realized then that Halward's magic must have left a strong, and negative, impression, and that his own reminded her of it. He hadn't thought that Tally's would, but it made a wretchedly inevitable kind of sense.

_Even so I thought I could manage, especially if she was mostly off with the mages, but I have these nightmares, and this morning when I woke from one I_

There was a thick black patch where words had been struck out, and Dorian decided that he had no interest in trying to figure out what they had been.

_I realized that it was better if I was away from Tally for a little while, until she felt more like my daughter than his. I'm sorry for leaving you to get her settled with the mages--do check on her as often as they'll let you, please. She's very young._

_She's a good girl. I've taught her to be safe as well as I could. I hope it was enough._

_Your grateful wife,  
Molly_

Dorian made a face, working his mouth as if he could spit out the nasty taste that _grateful_ left, to say nothing of Molly's anxious reminders that Tally was young, and _a good girl_. Dorian didn't even want to contemplate what Molly might mean by _safe_.

He looked the letter over again and considered the idea of doing what Molly had obviously expected. He couldn't say he was particularly friendly with any of the mages over in the tower, but he was well enough acquainted with them collectively to know they seemed on the whole to be irritatingly decent in the way southerners so often were; Evelyn no doubt knew them even better, and surely wouldn't let anything nasty start up over there. So Tally would be safe with them, and they could teach her...

As well as any Circle-trained mages who'd spent all their lives with the menace of southern Templars keeping them in line. Dorian remembered Cullen's mild questioning with a flash of renewed outrage--but it was obviously the sort of thing Cullen would have been alert for, when he was a Templar minding a Circle. And all these southern mages would be accustomed to that--accustomed to Templars looking after them. Did they even really know how to guard themselves, properly, the way an Altus child learned?

Anyway, Dorian had already moved into these rooms on the assumption--not only his, but Josephine's and Evelyn's and everyone's--that Tally would stay with him. Of course none of them knew about Tally's _cat_ , but still. They all obviously thought Tally belonged with her father--and _Tally_ had been quite clear about wanting to stay with Dorian. How could he look her in the eye tomorrow morning and tell her that he'd changed his mind, and would be banishing her to a tower he'd scarcely visited in all the time he'd lived at Skyhold, to live among absolute strangers?

Dorian could almost see it playing out, like a crystal-clear vision of the future: Tally would be ten times as upset over that very real broken promise than she'd been over whatever she'd been upset about tonight. Upset enough for another burst of hysterical magic, no doubt, and that would bring Cullen with his Templar's instincts, and Evelyn, wanting to keep the peace, would say how sensible it was for Tally to go to the tower. And then someone would tell Dorian it would be _disruptive to Euthalia's adjustment_ if he insisted on visiting her too often, and...

No. Tally would stay with him, and he'd teach her the best he could. Perhaps he'd get in touch with whoever was in charge of training the littlest ones over in the tower, to be sure he wasn't neglecting any important areas of her education. More than anything else, Molly hadn't wanted Tally to be in the care of someone who was frightened of her, and Dorian wasn't going to bring that down on them now. 

He folded the letter and took it to his trunk, digging out the many-locked box. This was a letter he very surely did not want Tally to stumble upon, and he pushed it to the bottom of the collection of papers, resting the birthright amulet on top. 

Dorian had just finished locking it up when there was a soft tap at his door. With a sinking feeling of inevitability, Dorian opened it, and he was not at all surprised to see Evelyn standing there, with Leliana at her shoulder.

"What, you didn't bring the commander too?" Dorian asked lightly. "Did you think there wouldn't be enough seats?"

Evelyn grimaced in such a way that Dorian knew the answer almost before she said it. "He wanted to come, but I didn't want this to look like..."

"A squad of templars sent to apprehend an apostate?" Dorian filled in, and Evelyn shrugged but nodded.

"I just want to talk," Evelyn said, glancing over Dorian's shoulder and obviously spotting Tally asleep on the bed, as her speech became abruptly less careful. "I just want to know what the blight's going on, Dorian."

And that was no more than he owed her, as a friend--and kinswoman--never mind as the Inquisitor. 

"Yes," he said. "Come in."

The locked box was still sitting out on top of his trunk, and Dorian picked it up as he waved Evelyn and Leliana into what was meant to be Tally's room. He had a feeling the story would be easier to tell, or at least more quickly believed, when he could present the collected documentary evidence along with it.


	5. Chapter 5

Bull lay in bed, staring up at the holes in his ceiling and trying to think of any reason at all for getting up. He thought there was something, something he was supposed to remember about this, but his thoughts just kept sticking on Dorian, and the way Dorian had turned his back, and the sureness of Dorian's hands holding his daughter close. Pretty easy to see, even with just one eye, where Dorian's _kadan_ was.

If Bull got up, he might see Dorian again--might see Dorian turning away from him again, or Dorian being bright and charming and pretending none of this mattered. Or he might not see Dorian at all, or he might...

There was a knock on the door and Bull closed his eye, slinging an arm over his face. 

"Bull?" It was the boss, her voice pitched cautiously low. "Krem said I might as well come look for you. He said he didn't think you could be hung over enough to sleep this late."

It _was_ late, wasn't it? The angle of the sun through the roof wasn't one he usually saw. But Bull didn't want to get up. If the boss would just go away and stop talking to him, he could go back to sleep right now--except Krem had told her to come up, and that probably meant that Krem would come and kick his ass out of bed if Bull didn't at least talk to her.

"Yeah," Bull said, pushing himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. His head ached dully--he was a _little_ hung over. His single-minded efforts to make most of last night just not be happening to him had gotten that far. "I'm up."

The door cracked open and the boss peeked in before she opened it the rest of the way; Bull couldn't help smiling a little at that, tired though he was. 

She came in and shut the door firmly behind her, then barred it. Bull raised his eyebrows, feeling himself come a little more alert. Did she have some kind of job for him--for the Chargers? Something secret? 

Something that would get him and his boys the fuck out of Skyhold for a while?

"I wanted to talk to you," she said. "Leliana and I talked to Dorian last night, and we had a war room meeting first thing this morning where he went over the, uh, main points with everyone else, but... I wanted you to know too. What's going on with him. With Tally."

"Ah," Bull said, and let himself sag forward a little, bracing one elbow on his knee and rubbing the other hand over his rough face. He thought about shaving, but it seemed like an awful lot of work for no reward he could think of. Nobody was going to bitch semi-seriously about stubble-burn, or nuzzle a smooth cheek appreciatively. "Did _he_ want me to know?"

"Dorian is a bit... distracted," Evelyn said. "But when I asked him if I could catch you up, he didn't hesitate to agree."

Dorian didn't hesitate, Bull thought, only a little meanly, to push off a dirty job on the boss instead of handling it himself. But it wasn't like Bull had a right to expect anything in particular from Dorian now. 

"Okay," Bull said, and waved vaguely around his room, inviting the boss to take a seat wherever she liked.

She came and perched near him on the edge of the bed, looking earnestly at him. Bull couldn't stand the weight of her gaze. He got up almost as soon as she sat down, making for the jug and basin and his shaving gear. When he weighed the benefit of not having to field that look from close up, shaving was definitely worth it.

"Go on," he said, with his back to her. "Lay it on me."

"Right," Evelyn said, and he heard her stand up, but she paced cross-ways as she spoke, not coming closer to him. "Short version? Tally is Dorian's baby half-sister by, uh, blood. That stuff Dorian said to Halward, that time in Redcliffe, was about the fact that Halward planned on using Tally--before she was even born--as the blood sacrifice to power what he meant to do to Dorian. It was Molly, Tally's mom--" _Dorian's wife_ , "who figured it out. She stole some notes to prove it to Dorian. He had been basically a prisoner in his father's house up to then, but she got them both out that night."

Bull turned in place to stare at Evelyn, but the rest of it fell neatly--even elegantly--into place. He could see how Dorian would have found the solution irresistible, making so many dramatic gestures at once. "So he married Molly to protect her and repay her and get back at his dad all in one go."

"Basically," the boss agreed, showing no sign of surprise or displeasure at Bull stepping on her lines. "It's legal, it stands up. It would be hard for anyone, even Halward, to officially prove that Tally _isn't_ Dorian's daughter and even if he could it'd probably count as a binding adoption in the Chantry, which Fereldan and Orlesian law would both accept. Tally's magic is even like Dorian's, as it turns out. She, ah, did a bit of unplanned necromancy about a week ago--a cat she'd made friends with, who'd met with an accident--which is why her mother decided that it was time for them to pick up stakes and move immediately. She brought Tally here to learn from Dorian."

Bull turned away again, suppressing a shudder. Of all the magic he'd seen Dorian do, raising corpses was the creepiest. To think of that tiny little girl doing anything like that--untrained, unprotected, _uncontrolled_ \--

But when Bull thought of the tiniest little saarebas he'd ever seen, another shudder went through him thinking of Tally like that--that tiny bright-eyed girl with so much of Dorian in her face. There was no making a joke about the idea of _Tally_ collared and leashed. 

Still... maybe there was a silver lining to Dorian not wanting anything to do with him. Bull didn't want to be the guy on hand if the kid turned into an abomination and someone had to--do what had to be done, in that case. Dorian would never forgive him. Bull wasn't sure he could forgive himself, for that matter. If he could make a logical decision to kill a little kid, what good was it being sane anyway? What good was it to even--

Bull cut off that line of thought and focused on shaving, rinsing the razor neatly. "Got it," he said. "Anything else important?"

The boss didn't say anything for a while, and then, "He's been scared, Bull. All this time. He thinks even now his father would kill Tally if he knew she existed--not even for the blood magic, just because she's a--a _crossbreed_ \--like someone's prize mabari got knocked up by a mongrel. Fucking _Vints_."

Bull nodded agreement and did not point out that Dorian himself was the purebred version. Then again, being Tally's dad was as decisive a way of turning renegade against that system as Dorian could probably come up with if he planned for years.

"But that's why he never talked about it," the boss went on, and there was a little pleading note in her voice. 

Bull realized she wanted him to understand--to not be angry at Dorian for keeping the secret, or whatever she thought Bull might be mad about here, as if he had any right to be angry about any of this. He'd _known_ Dorian had a secret to keep--he knew, finally, why Dorian had said he _must not_ reveal it, because he had to keep Tally secret to keep her safe. Dorian almost hadn't lied to him at all, when you got right down to it.

Dorian just also hadn't thought Bull was someone he could safely tell about Tally; not then, and not after Bull was Tal-Vashoth, and not even when Tally was right there for Bull to see.

"He was scared for her, and I think he--he missed them, so it was easier to just not think about them or talk about them most of the time."

Bull thought of the way Dorian had held Tally against his side, cuddled close. Dorian didn't press that close to _Bull_ until he'd come enough times to be no more than semi-conscious; even perched on Bull's knee in the Herald's Rest, three sheets to the wind, Dorian maintained a little vestige of his own space. He'd let Bull pull him closer, maybe, but he'd never reach out for it.

But Tally was someone he would pull inside his guard without considering the alternative; everybody needed someone to be close to like that, to be on the inside of things with. Bull just hadn't realized that anyone could get closer to that, for Dorian, than what Bull himself had managed. 

But of course his daughter--and she clearly _was_ his daughter, no matter how the genetics went, Bull could see that--got inside Dorian's guard. That was where she belonged. 

And that put Bull on the outside. It was just the way things were. Nobody's fault.

"Yeah," Bull said. "I get it. It's fine."

The boss was silent again for a while, then said, "So... you're... okay?"

"Sure," Bull said, drying his face, running a hand over it to check the smoothness of the shave, and still not turning to face the boss. "No skin off my nose. Anything else you wanted to tell me?"

Bull turned to look, and the boss was studying him intently, worriedly. He thought she was going to push, but he kept his neutral expression in place until she shrugged and said, "Well, I was chatting with Krem while we waited to see if you were going to come down, and it sounds like there's some work you could do that would suit Inquisition purposes as well."

There. That was a reason to have gotten out of bed, wasn't it? That was a reason to do plenty of stuff, whole days of stuff, where he wouldn't get stuck and wonder about useless things. Where he wouldn't see Dorian or not see Dorian, because he wouldn't be at Skyhold and Dorian would be leagues and leagues away.

"Yeah," Bull said. "Okay. Sounds good."

* * *

Tally, under several wards for quiet and to alert Dorian if she moved, as well as the very gentlest hint of suggestion to stay asleep, mercifully stayed down until Dorian got back from the war room. She even gave him another ten minutes to pull himself together after he'd gotten back, but then of course she was bounding out of bed.

Dorian could almost have missed the one hopeful look around she took, searching for someone who wasn't there, in the subsequent flood of chatter. Dorian just smiled and let her talk while he got her washed up and changed into a fresh dress--she never had made it into her nightshirt the night before.

He paused for a second when she was down to her drawers, arrested by the sight of the peacock feather on her chest. Tally immediately tucked her chin, peering down at it herself, and announced, "That says I'm a Pavus like Mama and you."

"Indeed it does," Dorian agreed, feeling the ache of his own mark on his chest. He'd mostly stopped pausing every morning and evening to recognize that he'd gone another day without being disowned, though he still thought his father must get to that point eventually.

If he heard about Molly... 

Dorian did not follow that train of thought. He couldn't, not now, not with Tally beaming at him.

He reached out and tapped a finger against the feather instead, wondering if it would still respond as it had in the day after he'd laid it on her. His careful smile turned helplessly real when it did, fluttering just exactly like a feather in a breeze.

Tally wriggled, laughing. "Papa! That tickles!"

"Does it," Dorian said. It wasn't something he'd ever heard about house marks--he hadn't had occasion to touch Molly's after he'd put it on her. He tried again, tapping here and there, until Tally had collapsed in paroxysms of laughter, wriggling away again and again only to press close for another tickle every time. Dorian, charmed and a little hopeful that he could distract Tally from who hadn't been here when she woke up, obliged again and again.

Eventually he did get them back on track, getting Tally dressed and her hair neatened up so they could go and find some breakfast.

He probed gently with questions about her dreams, but what she reported sounded harmless. After that he started talking casually about the nature of magic, occasionally prompting her to ask questions or repeat back what he'd said. Tally, still bright-eyed and cheerful, seemed to soak it up readily; it wasn't much in the way of information, but she had to start somewhere. Dorian supposed that he would have gathered a similar sort of general knowledge when he was Tally's age, from people around him. From the air, in Tevinter. He hadn't had any formal tutors that early.

He'd been learning his letters, though, he was sure, and he knew that Tally had at least begun learning hers, unless the straggling HELLO PAPA included on Molly's last few letters was some sort of peculiar joke. He located a piece of parchment he could tack down to a little lacquered lap desk that wasn't much more than a smooth board, and then he took Tally with him to the library and settled her to practice her letters on the parchment--it would be easy enough to wipe clean with a spell so she could go on whenever she filled it up.

Dorian then settled down to his own research, or at least started trying to work out what he'd been doing with the books he'd piled up in his usual nook. Eventually he found a sheaf of paper folded around a pen--notes he'd been taking--and that jogged his memory enough to be going on with. Still, it felt as if it had been weeks, as if he'd gone out on some grueling string of adventures with Evelyn, since the last time he looked at these books. 

It had scarcely been a full day. He looked down uneasily at Tally and tried not to think about how many more days stretched before them until... what? Until Tally was ready for her Harrowing? Until Molly came back? Surely Molly would come back.

Her letter had said nothing about where Dorian ought to write to her; the last drop he'd known of for her had been in Montfort. Would Molly flee as far as that, while she got over her fright at Tally's magic? Surely she would be back before Dorian could even send a letter so far, anyway.

Surely.

Dorian was staring at the book open in front of him without taking anything in, when he looked up at movement coming toward him; he was startled to see that it was Krem. He didn't think he'd ever seen Krem in the library before.

And then he realized that if Krem was here, it was because Bull very pointedly _wasn't_ here. There was something Dorian had to be told, and Krem had ventured into the library to find him and tell him.

Dorian composed his face into an amiable expression and said, "Salve, Cremisius."

Krem snorted and said, "Back atcha, Pavus. Just wanted to let you know we're heading out of Skyhold. Shouldn't be gone more than a week--it's small potatoes stuff, but the Inquisitor thought it'd be a help."

Dorian blinked at Krem, feeling as if this, too, were a continuation of something he'd stepped away from weeks ago, though in fact it had only been the night before last. He and Krem had put their heads together in the Herald's Rest, when Bull was lured over to mediate some dispute among the other Chargers. 

Krem had mentioned some contracts they'd been offered, floating the idea that it would be good for Bull to get out on a job, even small stuff like what they currently had available. He'd even asked if Dorian might want to tag along. He'd said all of it as if Dorian were his natural partner in looking after Bull, as if Dorian had some right to be consulted on a matter that would take Bull away from him for some period of time.

Dorian was fairly certain that Krem had mentioned that it would be two or three weeks, though. There wasn't much work that could possibly be done quickly--and closely--enough to have them back at Skyhold within a week. Dorian had been debating whether to go, weighing all the annoyances of travel against the fact that he would otherwise spend the weeks trying not to wonder how Bull was doing, distracted and trying not to cross the line and be _so_ nasty to Evelyn or Sera that it was a real problem.

And now none of those considerations even entered into it: Tally was here, so there was no question of Dorian going anywhere, even if the Chargers had been willing to have him along. There was certainly no hint of invitation in Krem's announcement.

"Thank you for informing me," Dorian said after a too-long pause, lowering his gaze back to the book in his lap. He wondered if Krem thought Dorian had spent that whole long pause thinking about the fact that Bull hadn't come himself, or sent any message, or given any sign at all that he was anything but eager to be as far away from Dorian as possible.

"You could come say goodbye," Krem pressed. "If you do that sort of thing."

Dorian had, in fact, contrived to see Bull off in some fashion every time he'd left Skyhold for months now. Sometimes it had been a matter of kissing him goodbye and falling back to sleep in his bed, but just as often he'd been in the courtyard to see them ride out through the gates.

Krem knew perfectly well that Dorian did that sort of thing, before today. Krem also knew perfectly well that Bull would have told Dorian he was leaving, before today. 

"Goodbye," Dorian said without looking up. 

"Papa?" 

Dorian jerked and twisted around to see Tally standing up from where she'd been sitting on the floor with her parchment board--the parchment was full, and he thought from the curious look on her face that she'd been entirely absorbed in what she was doing, and only noticed Krem just now. There was a smear of charcoal on her cheek from the stick and--Dorian glanced down and suppressed a sigh--both her hands were streaked gray, and her arms up to the elbow, and...

Well. He knew cleaning spells, and getting charcoal off skin was essentially the same operation as getting it off of parchment. 

"Salve, Pavus parvus," Krem said, with an amused tilt of his head. 

"Salve!" Tally returned. "Um--"

"Salve, Lieutenant Aclassi," Dorian supplied. 

"Salve, Lieutenant Aclassi," Tally said, or near enough that it wasn't offensive. "You sound like my mama when she talks Tevene. Her name used to be Mistress Belli when she lived in Tevinter before she married Papa."

Krem glanced at Dorian, looking not at all sure what to say to that--not least, Dorian realized, because he'd wrongfooted Krem by unhesitatingly teaching Tally to show respect to Krem despite his origins.

"Yes," Dorian said firmly. "Lieutenant Aclassi grew up Soporati in Tevinter, just like your mama."

"My mama saved my papa and me," Tally announced to Krem. "She says that's because Soporati do all the work. Do you do all the work too?"

"Uh," Krem said, staring from Tally to Dorian and back. "I do my share. I pick up the slack for the chief sometimes, I guess. That's not about being Soporati, though, I'm just good at my job. I bet you'll be good at your job when you have one, too, won't you?"

Tally nodded firmly. "And save people! Lots of people. Even more than Mama and Papa! My papa saves people too, do you save people?"

"Uh, sometimes," Krem said, beginning to look a little desperate to escape this interrogation. "Yeah. That's good, though. You should do that. When you're big," Krem added after a half-second's pause, just enough to hear how it sounded, judging by the slight widening of his eyes. "When you're ready--you've got to do your whole apprenticeship first, right?"

Tally heaved a put-upon sigh at this reminder, then brightened again and held up the board covered with mostly-legible letters. "Look! I'm learning!"

"That's... good. I have to go now," Krem said. He took a step backward, then hesitated again, his gaze fixing on Dorian. "You're sure you won't come down?"

The reminder punched Dorian in the chest, when he'd nearly forgotten what had brought Krem up here to be subjected to Tally's version of small talk. 

"No, I need to supervise Tally's work," Dorian said, which was the most absurd lie he could possibly have come up with; Tally was already bouncing a little in place and very obviously needed some sort of break to burn off energy.

Or else she needed to be taught that she must be quiet and keep still and not push her thoughts and questions on adults, that she would get nothing but cold disapproval if she demanded their attention, but--no. She needed a break, that was all.

"Right," Krem said. "Very important, clearly. Can't spare a moment." He turned and walked away before he'd even finished speaking, and was gone before Dorian could think of anything more to say.

* * *

After they'd had their lunch--in Tally's case, at her insistence, nothing but round bread rolls and white cheese, although a frankly astonishing quantity of them--Tally began drooping, leaning against Dorian while trying to walk beside him, and Dorian decided that she needed a rest. He steered them back to their rooms without declaring this intention, as he had a feeling that springing the trap too early would rouse defenses he didn't care to fight through.

As it was, he managed to get Tally all the way to her bed, Fido tucked under her arm, and was helping her take her shoes off, before Tally said sharply, "Papa! I can't go to sleep yet!"

Dorian looked up at her, taking in the way she was rubbing one heavy eye. She was sitting up a little straighter, but he had to think that that wouldn't last long, so he decided to take her objection in good humor. "No? When can you, do you suppose?"

"After you ask me my _questions_ ," Tally said, and then her eyes went really wide. "Papa! You didn't ask me _any_ questions last night! I could have forgot and made a bad mistake!"

This was, obviously, some sort of ritual Molly had carried out with her, and he remembered that line of the letter-- _I've taught her to be safe as well as I can_. 

The peril of going to sleep was a very specific one, after all. The way Tally said it, the ritual seemed to be of an older vintage than just the past week, but likely Molly had been thinking ahead. Molly was very practical like that, and the question of Tally's future could never have been farther from her than Tally herself was.

"Oh, I see," Dorian said. "Goodness, I forgot myself--that's a bad mistake right there, isn't it?"

"It's okay, Papa," Tally assured him, patting his shoulder. "Demons mostly can't get you when you're awake. Not like in the Fade."

No, demons attacked in an entirely different way, here in the waking world, but that was surely not the sort of bedtime story Tally needed now. Dorian tugged her shoe the rest of the way off and moved to sit beside her.

"It's been a long time since I had anyone to ask questions before going to sleep," Dorian said, trying to remember if there had been some similar caution his nanny laid upon him, or if they'd assumed he was safe until his magic manifested, by which time he'd begun his education. "Perhaps you can help me."

Tally nodded and took his hand, and Dorian, bemused, let her hold it in both of hers. 

"First you ask me, where is the Fade?"

She looked at him expectantly until Dorian realized that she was not going to go on until he performed his part in this recitation, and obediently repeated, "Where is the Fade?"

"Through the Veil, everywhere and nowhere, never far away," Tally recited. "Then you ask me, how do you know if you're there?"

Beginning to be fascinated by how much Molly had taught her, Dorian promptly repeated the question back. 

"The light is green, things go sideways, all's too beautiful," Tally stated confidently, "and you can't remember..." she frowned.

"You can't remember how you got there?" Dorian suggested. 

"You can't remember _how you came_ ," Tally corrected in superior tones, but she patted his hand a little as if to say, _you nearly had it, child._

"Now--who do you meet there?"

Again Dorian repeated the question.

"Demons, though with a thousand faces," Tally said. "Now you ask me different faces. Like, what if you see your Papa in the Fade?"

"What if you see your Papa in the Fade?" Dorian prompted.

"It's not my Papa, it's a demon," Tally said sturdily, and looked at him expectantly.

He couldn't ask _what if you see your Mama,_ not today.

"What if you see the Inquisitor in the Fade?" They'd seen Evelyn at lunch, and Tally had greeted her eagerly.

"It's not Cousin Evelyn, it's a demon!"

"What if you see Lieutenant Aclassi in the Fade?"

"It's not him, it's a demon!"

"What if you see--" Dorian groped for a suitably confounding example. "Commander Rutherford in the Fade?"

Tally's eyes went wide, and her hands tightened on Dorian's, but she said staunchly, "It's not him! It's a _demon_!"

Dorian had a hunch he knew the next step of the questions, and they seemed to have reached a crescendo. "What do you say to the demon who looks like Commander Rutherford, if he tells you to come with him?"

"No!" Tally said, bouncing a little with glee that assured Dorian that he'd gotten the transition right.

"What do you say if the demon who looks like Lieutenant Aclassi offers you a cuddly pink nug?"

Tally's lips parted and her eyes darted down to Fido, but then she shook her head hard. "No! No!" 

"What do you say if the demon who looks like Cousin Evelyn offers you a ride on her horse?"

"No! No! No!" Tally bounced with each repetition.

"What do you say if the demon who looks like your Papa offers you a pretty kitten?"

Tally looked briefly stunned, then took her hands from Dorian's to clap them over her ears, shutting her eyes as she chanted, nearly shouting, "No no no no no!"

"Just so," Dorian murmured, curling down to press a kiss to the top of Tally's head. He gave her a squeeze, and felt her hands come down from the frantic ear-covering. "Just so, filia. As long as you are as clever and brave as your mama taught you to be, you'll do well."

Tally tensed in his embrace at that, pressing harder against him and winding a hand into his sleeve. "But what if... if Mama..."

Yes, it probably had been far too much to hope that he could avoid Tally thinking about seeing her Mama, just by not saying it. Dorian drew her properly into his lap, letting her nestle tighter against her chest.

"Your mama loves you very much, and she wants you to learn to be a very good mage," Dorian said firmly. "She had to go away for a little while, but she'll come join us here at Skyhold as soon as she can, carissima, I promise you."

Tally squirmed a little, still holding tight to him, but she sounded faintly hopeful when she said, "When is she coming?"

Dorian hugged her. "I don't know when precisely, or I'm sure I would have said in the first place. She had to go... take care of some things, and she didn't know how long that would take. So we just have to take good care of each other until she comes back, don't we? We have to tell her that we remembered to do things properly, and tried our very hardest not to make bad mistakes, and didn't make any bargains with demons. Do you think you can do that?"

"I'll say no, no, no," Tally agreed, but her voice was turning drowsy again already, so apparently Dorian's confident-sounding nonsense was persuasive enough for a four-year-old. That was something. "I'll be good. I won't set anything on fire, Papa."

She was nearly talking in her sleep by the time she said that, limp against his chest, and Dorian huffed a little laugh. "Well, now, carissima, let's not make rash promises. Just do your best and say no to demons, and we'll go from there."

Tally said nothing; she was asleep. Dorian sat a little longer, just to be sure she wouldn't wake again right away, and then he maneuvered her carefully into her bed. He stood there a while, watching her, before he finally forced himself to go into the other room and make lists of all the things he must do without fail as soon as possible.

* * *

Dorian balanced Tally on his hip, her limp sleeping weight seeming double what it normally was, and cradled a stack of books in his other arm. It was fine, as long as Tally kept still and he didn't run into anyone. And he wouldn't, of course; there was no one else around in this chilly, drafty corridor. 

Though if there were anyone, he might not see them; the windows in this corridor let in only a murky light, tinted green by the glass. Dorian tried to look out and see whether a storm was coming, but somehow he couldn't seem to focus his eyes on the sky, and his grip on Tally and the books began to slip while he stood there squinting.

He swung around to continue down the corridor, but his staff, slung on his back, knocked at the back of his legs and made him stumble. It was a long awful stagger, clutching frantically at Tally, at the books, twisting to be sure that if he did fall he would take the brunt of the impact, but he finally regained his balance and stood panting at the entry to a winding staircase. 

It was even darker in there, and Dorian was so tired he couldn't remember whether he needed to go up or down. Tally felt heavier with every passing moment, and Dorian's hand was sweating where he clutched the books, threatening to besmirch the pages. Whichever way he went, if his staff tripped him up again, the fall would be so much worse; a moment's wavering could get Tally killed, could destroy his research and all his work.

Dorian was sure there was a way to solve this problem, but he couldn't think of what it was--and then a familiar, welcome voice behind him said, "Dorian, let me give you a hand. You don't have to carry everything yourself."

Dorian felt a rush of relief so strong it was dizzying, and started to turn, already smiling at--

At the person there, his friend, holding their arms out and saying, "Let me take her for you, you deserve a break."

Dorian opened and closed his mouth and looked down at the top of Tally's head. She was heavier than ever, and it would be better to hand her to someone else before he dropped her. But there was something--

Dorian closed his eyes, dropped the books and felt them melt out of existence. He put both arms around Tally and turned half away from the demon who stood there, looking not quite like anyone in particular and yet radiating trustworthiness and familiarity.

"No," Dorian said hoarsely. "No, no, no, no."

The demon snorted, sounding somehow like Bull and like Felix and like Molly and like Evelyn, all at once. "Come now, you've never wanted anything the way you want a rest right now. I could give you that, you know I could."

Dorian shook his head, laughing a little himself, and pressed his face to Tally's hair. "No," he repeated, forcing himself to remember Tally's voice, Tally's excited face, and the questions and answers they'd exchanged half a dozen times now, before naps and bedtime and whenever Tally demanded a review. _You don't know how you came. That's a demon. No, no, no, no._

He needed to wake up, to escape this dream, to wrench himself out of the Fade. There was no way he would ever give in. 

Still, the offer of help made him ache all the more, and he couldn't gather himself to do anything but cling to Tally, even after he had fallen to his knees, even when every breath was a labored gasp. He couldn't pull himself away from the sweet lure of help, but he still remembered to say nothing to it but _no, no, no_.

* * *

Sitting down to breakfast in the Great Hall, Dorian's eyes were barely open, but he managed to get Tally settled beside him and her preferred breakfast foods on her plate. For himself he started with hot tea, hoping to wake himself up a little better, but he was half-dozing over it when he heard someone say, "Do you want me to take her for a while?" 

Dorian reflexively hauled Tally in tight against his side, making her let out a little yelp of startlement and fling the bread-and-jam she'd been eating directly into Dorian's lap. 

He looked around and found Evelyn giving him a sympathetic and somewhat concerned look. "You seem like you could use a break," she added. "Have you been sleeping?"

Dorian glanced briefly at the windows--showing sunlight of a quite normal color and a sliver of blue sky--and mentally retraced his steps back to waking up, through the whole already-familiar process of getting Tally dressed and out the door from their rooms. He knew how he'd gotten here; he knew that was Evelyn, really Evelyn herself and not anyone stealing her face; nothing was green or tilted at ninety degrees to its normal plane. 

He was awake. This was not the Fade. Nothing particularly disastrous would come of acceding to Evelyn's offer. 

Still, the thought of handing Tally over to anyone, for any reason, sent a cold chill of terror through him, and he struggled more than he should have to keep a reasonably neutral expression as he shook his head. 

"No, thank you," he said, distracting himself with separating Tally's erstwhile breakfast food from his clothing and replacing it while she was still too startled to complain. "I'm... managing."

He didn't meet her eyes, or look around to see who might have overheard. He focused on Tally. That was all he had to do now. They were still getting used to each other; this would probably get easier, in time. He would stop having such obnoxious visitors in the Fade every night and return to getting some meaningful rest when he slept. Molly would come back. He only had to hang on a while longer.

And if he knew how to do anything, Dorian Pavus knew how to endure, and smile, and endure.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept waiting to post this until I'd finished the next chapter, but... 2020 only knows when that might happen, and this one leaves our heroes in a better spot than Chapter 5 did, so I thought it would be better to share it.

Ashkaari had been named because he couldn't resist trying to understand things, and in due course he had become Hissrad, taking in all the intelligence he could and assembling it into coherent pictures of the world to send back to Par Vollen.

The Iron Bull, though--The Iron Bull was really fucking good at mindless violence. 

Dealing with a few groups of bandits stupid enough to operate practically in the shadow of Skyhold, and a bear situation that turned out to be the result of a demon-wolf situation, was right up Bull's alley. He could hack apart enemies all day and take just enough minor hurts to feel alive. He could drink and sing and laugh with his boys in camp at night; he could bed down and sleep hard in the middle of the companionable heap of Chargers who liked body heat better than blankets. After a day like that he could get up to do it all again the next day with a smile on his face.

After maybe five days of that--by which time they'd done their little loop of local problems and were heading back toward Skyhold--Bull realized that he'd shaken the quiet creeping madness. He'd gotten his head above water, briefly, at Skyhold, but now he thought he might actually be on dry land, or at least wading near the shore.

He'd gotten that glimpse out of it just before Dorian's daughter turned up--just enough to know what he was fighting through, and of course he'd slipped right back under at the first upset. It had seemed logical, as it had all through those weeks of dull gray madness, that Dorian should hate or fear him or wish to keep everything important from him. That tentative, barely-whispered thought, _kadan_ , hadn't held up under pressure, not when it was so new and uncertain. He'd lost his grip on that center before he ever had a chance to anchor himself on it.

Now, out in the fresh air with his blood pumping and his brain humming along, it occurred to him that that had been a very drastic reaction to what had to be, ultimately, a relatively minor problem. Sure, Dorian had a kid now, and that would be important to him because he was bas and had all those ideas about families and everything. Bull could understand that; the choice he'd made back at the Storm Coast--his boys over any other consideration--he thought that must be something like the same feeling. 

If it had been Dorian down there... he didn't think he'd have needed the boss to encourage him to make the choice he'd made. He didn't think he'd have waited long enough to even hear what she thought. 

So Bull got it: Tally was important to Dorian like that. She was little and alone and scared and of course Dorian had devoted all his attention to her when she showed up so suddenly. She needed him right then, in a crisis, and Dorian was good in a crisis. He would have known that Bull could handle himself; he'd triaged what needed his attention most. Right then, it was Tally.

But she was a four-year-old with her mage powers coming in. She belonged with a Tama, or in a school, or however the mages organized themselves now. There were people at Skyhold who must deal with that stuff--there were kids in Skyhold, and they weren't all being carried around on their parents' hips all the time, or running wild. Obviously, once the immediate crisis passed, she'd be in the care of someone who actually knew what they were doing, looking after and teaching a kid. Dorian had other stuff to do--important stuff, saving-the-world stuff. He wasn't going to drop all of that and sit by the fire rocking a cradle. 

Hell, they'd probably be out in the field together again next week, crammed into a tent together while Tally stayed safe and sound in Skyhold. 

He caught himself smiling a little at that daydream, and recognized the feeling of something too good to be true. He could feel the dark pit waiting for his thoughts to fall into, and consciously pulled himself back from going right back to assuming the worst instead. 

He needed someone else to judge by, that was all. Krem had been holding him and the Chargers together for weeks now; he could probably bear one more request.

Bull drew up beside him, and before he'd thought of how to ask, Krem gave him an up and down look and said, "Looking forward to getting back, chief?"

"Yeah," Bull said, watching Krem from the corner of his eye as he added, "I think I... might have been in more of a hurry to leave than I should have been, actually."

Krem made a noncommittal noise and twisted away from Bull, making a production of checking up and down the line to make sure they hadn't lost anyone in the last five minutes. 

Well, what Krem knew about it was all from Bull, wasn't it? He hadn't been there when Dorian introduced Tally to the Inquisition, hadn't been in that war room meeting with the boss. She must have told him a little, but not all of it.

"Yeah," Bull went on. "I think I probably overreacted. Slightly. To this whole thing with Dorian's kid showing up."

"Oh, yeah, with you there, chief," Krem said promptly. "You flew _right_ off the handle."

Bull did not deign to reply to that with any particular haste.

After a few minutes, Krem added, "But I think it was probably a good thing to get you and him out of each other's way for a little while. Let you get your head on straight instead of tripping over each other every day making things worse. Also, we had work to do, which is sort of what the Inquisition keeps us around for."

"Mm," Bull said, because he couldn't exactly argue with any of that. "Dorian's probably straightened things out by now too, don't you think?"

Krem was silent for a moment, then said cautiously, "Straightened which things out?"

"With..." Bull waved a hand, trying to work out what hazard Krem saw here that he couldn't. "Tally."

"Uh-huh," Krem said, his dubious tone as good as a shout.

"Well, I mean, he said he was going to keep her with him," Bull said, although he couldn't remember precisely what Dorian had been talking about or even exactly what he'd said. He remembered the firm grip Dorian had kept on her very clearly, though.

He remembered thinking that she was Dorian's _kadan_. But that had been the craziness talking, clearly; no one could anchor their life on a little kid.

Krem turned his head to look at Bull, so it was very easy to see his expression, although Bull couldn't quite interpret it. Incredulous, maybe? "Chief. He's keeping her with him. She's his daughter. I know you know that's what we do."

"Dorian left home when he was--"

"Euthalia is _four_ ," Krem said flatly. "She's practically still a baby, and she's a _girl_. A magister's daughter wouldn't leave her parents' house until she got _married_."

Bull frowned, mentally shuffling intel files, searching for anything he knew of Tevinter heiresses. He couldn't immediately recall anything to refute that statement, but... "Literally?"

"Just about," Krem said grimly. "Dorian doesn't have an estate to keep her on, and I doubt he's going to be--" Krem waved a hand. "Terrible about it? Especially if he doesn't plan on having other children and is raising her as heir to the House. But she's still his _daughter_." 

Bull frowned, searching for words in trade to formulate the question, or answer, that suggested--if _heir_ wasn't a _daughter_ role, shouldn't _heir_ win out when it came to Tally's gender? But he knew that Krem wouldn't have overlooked a possibility like that if it existed.

"And," Krem added, sounding weary, like it was something he shouldn't have to explain again, "even if Euthalia turns out to be not quite the kind of kid Dorian currently thinks, right now he's thinking she's his daughter and that's how he's going to treat her. But even a boy wouldn't be sent out of the household _that_ young, not unless his parents were even worse shitbags than the usual run of Altus. Anyway, before we left Dorian looked pretty well set on handling her education himself."

Bull frowned. "Oh?"

Krem kept his eyes front, rigid as a soldier doing drill, though he kept his voice light. "I saw him, the morning we left. He was in the library with Tally next to him, practicing her letters. Said he couldn't come and say goodbye because he had to supervise her work, so... seems like."

That meant that Krem had gone looking for Dorian--had asked him, specifically, if he was going to come and see them off. So maybe that business about it being a good thing to get him and Dorian out of each other's way hadn't been something Krem was entirely sold on, a week ago. 

Still. Krem had the fresh intel here, and Bull had to consider the evidence. He stared at the horizon for a while, trying to make that plan--Dorian deciding to put looking after Tally ahead of everything else, keeping her with him constantly--make sense. It was _dramatic_ , a big splashy gesture of devotion, and to someone no one--no bas, anyway--would blame Dorian for being devoted to. Also, it meant Dorian didn't have to trust anyone with something important to him, and Dorian wasn't real big on trust--and most people in Skyhold wouldn't exactly be falling over themselves to help him out, if it came to that. 

So Bull could see where it was a thing Dorian would do, or at least attempt to do. He just couldn't see how it could possibly _work_.

"That's an entire _job_ , though," Bull said, half to himself, though the noise Krem made wasn't disagreement, so he knew he wasn't too far off. "That's... I know even for humans, that's a specialization. Looking after kids, and teaching them. Dorian isn't _trained_ for that. And even if he decides to just... wing it, the Inquisition needs him."

And, hell, even if _that_ wasn't a consideration, Dorian had to _sleep_ sometimes. Bull's Tamas, as far back as he could remember, had always been on rotations. If you woke in the night it wouldn't be the usual daytime Tama you'd find if you went looking for an adult for some kind of help, and even during the day, their Tama would be gone every fourth day or so, and sometimes for longer breaks, so all the imekari got used to listening to whichever adult was minding them, and Tamas didn't get irretrievably burned out inside a year. Tamas minding really little ones worked in pairs or trios, three or four shifts around the clock, since they needed so much active care. 

Obviously it would be inefficient to assign multiple people to care for just one child like that, but that was why Tally should be going to wherever all the other kids in Skyhold went to get looked after and educated. It didn't mean that just one person could be on the job constantly without a break.

Bull frowned at the horizon, thinking about how far Dorian would push himself, if he were determined to prove that he could make his dramatic gesture work. That... might be pretty far. Farther than was good for anyone--him _or_ Tally.

Well. Bull would just have to get back to Skyhold, and get a better look at what the fuck Dorian thought he was doing, and then he'd know what to do about it.

* * *

"Papa, that was _my picture_! I _drew it for you_ and you _erased it_!" 

Dorian stared at Tally, simultaneously genuinely stricken and so tired that he couldn't summon a single word or even a suitable facial expression, let alone do anything productive about the situation. He just watched, numbly paralyzed, while Tally wound herself up raging at him. He realized what she was about to do a second before she smashed the lap desk and the--tragically blank--parchment through a library window, and managed to catch it.

Tally just screamed at him, thwarted, and let go so abruptly that Dorian lost his balance, going down in a heap as Tally whirled around toward Dorian's papers and books. She let loose an earsplitting shriek and--

It wasn't a tug on the Fade; it was pure hurt rage ripping through the Veil. In a blink, Dorian's chair and table and research and books were all on fire, burning just faintly green. 

" _Fuck_ ," Dorian snarled, because this really deserved the frank vulgarity of Trade. He scrambled up, already flinging shields to cut off the fire's air supply, snuffing it out without adding water damage to the fire damage.

He'd have sworn it was the work of only a moment to be sure that the fire was out and take a quick survey of the destruction, including making sure that Tally hadn't just created an actual Rift with that little fit of temper. Still, by the time he looked around for her in the suspiciously complete silence, Tally had vanished. 

She'd abandoned Fido in her flight. Dorian knelt to pick up the battered toy. He squeezed it in both hands as he bowed his head and let his eyes close. He just needed to catch his breath, that was all. He just needed something to hold on to, just for a moment--something that didn't need anything from him.

Tally wouldn't go very far; thanks to the sensational tale of her arrival and all the ensuing speculation about her origins, everyone in Skyhold knew who she was. Even people who might spit on Dorian's shadow knew that Tally was also the Inquisitor's favorite little cousin. No one would hurt her or let her escape out the gates. She would be somewhere he could find her when he'd managed to get up on his feet again. 

He couldn't say how long he'd been kneeling there--too long and not nearly long enough--when he heard, horribly far away, Tally's shriek of terror. At once he was on his feet and running, his exhaustion evaporating in the blink of an eye.

* * *

Bull was first through the gates, looking around as if he might see an instant answer to the question that had been beating at him since he'd worked out what he needed to worry about back on the road. But there was no immediate sign; Dorian wasn't waiting to greet him--or even making an elaborate pretense of just happening to be in sight of the gates--and nothing big enough to disturb the general peace seemed to have gone wrong. That was something.

Bull turned his attention to the usual chaos of the Chargers returning to Skyhold. Mounts and pack animals filled the courtyard outside the stables; the boys were all over the place greeting whoever had come to meet them, unloading weapons and loot and various gear. 

Rocky was swinging a crate marked DON'T TOUCH onto his shoulder when a tiny dark-haired projectile wailing something like _Cooooole_ launched from the edge of the courtyard. The imekari was barreling right at Rocky's knees, paying no heed to the dozen horses ready to kick her or trample her if she spooked them.

Bull dove at her, possibly swatting a horse out of the way himself in the process, and snatched the kid up a stride before the collision. 

Naturally, the kid was none other than Tally Pavus, and Bull had exactly one satisfied fraction of a second to think, _Now your papa's going to have to listen to reason_.

Tally was frozen for that same half-second, stunned silent when she found herself suddenly eight feet off the ground in Bull's hands. He watched her eyes go impossibly wide as she drew in a long, gasping breath, and his sense of vindication turned to alarm. It wasn't like _he_ was trained to handle panicky kids either. He looked for Dorian, who had to be already running after her.

Then Tally made a gesture Bull _recognized_ because when Dorian did it he _set things on fire_.

Bull flinched but kept his grip--he was manifestly not on fire and it would've already been too late if she could actually do that. He even managed to hold on when she followed up the attempted magic with a scream that was physically painful and _did_ succeed in spooking half a dozen horses. Bull pulled her in closer to his chest, dodging a bolting animal, but then Krem was at his side, yelling over the sustained screech and general din, "Give her here, chief, she's at least met me before!" 

Bull managed not to fling the kid at Krem but instead handed her over as gently as her shrieking and flailing allowed. 

Krem immediately balanced her on his hip, the way Dorian had held her in those first moments as he introduced her to the Inquisition. Krem bounced a little on his heels and spoke to her in low, gentle Tevene that Bull couldn't make out over the screaming. Whatever Krem was saying seemed to work; Tally settled down into inconsolable sobbing pretty quickly.

Bull looked around to see if he could help mitigate the chaos, but the animals were all already being corralled, and... Dorian was standing in the middle of the courtyard with one hand covering his face, the sag of his shoulders eloquent even from a hundred yards away.

This was... possibly not the best way for Bull to begin a campaign to convince Dorian that Bull had some extremely logical ideas he should listen to about taking care of Tally. He took a couple of backward steps just as Dorian dropped his hand and looked up again, and Dorian met his gaze with a dark look as he stabbed a pointing finger toward Bull.

Bull couldn't pretend to misunderstand; that was a very clear _stay right there_.

Dorian was stalking toward them, and Bull stayed exactly where he was even when Tally started looking around, even when she gasped and clung to Krem and let out a louder sob at the sight of him. Bull raised one hand in a goofy wave, though it was obviously way too late to look harmless, but he still didn't move, and then Dorian was there.

"Thank you, Cremisius. Tally, come here--"

Tally screamed at her father nearly as loudly as she had at Bull, which was actually sort of comforting. This time, though, Bull could just barely make out the shape of _I'm sorry_ in the noise.

"I know, carissima, I know you are," Dorian murmured, firmly repossessing her and tucking her against him; she clung to him even while wailing incoherent apologies and trying to hide her face against Dorian's chest. "It's all right, I put out the fire. I'm not angry, Tally, I know it was an accident."

Bull winced, realizing that the only reason the kid _hadn't_ managed to set him on fire when he scared her was that she'd just spent all her mana setting a fire somewhere else. Bull looked Dorian over, but he wasn't visibly singed anywhere, so she hadn't aimed that directly at him, at least.

That did significantly narrow the pool of people who could probably be relied on to take care of her. Bull shuffled some arguments in his head.

Krem made a little _this is your problem, chief_ gesture and turned away to help get the Chargers back into something like order. Bull was left standing helplessly out of reach while Dorian, bit by bit, managed to calm Tally down. 

When she'd gone limp and quiet, Dorian said gently, "Can you tell me what made you scream like that?"

Tally sniffled and peeked at Bull from the shelter of Dorian's arms. She pointed a finger nearly as stabby and imperious as her father's. "That--that--" 

"Tal-Vashoth," Dorian supplied in a firm tone, before Tally arrived at anything worse.

"He was going to _eat me_!"

Dorian gave Bull an ironic look, somewhat undercut by the fact that, when he looked straight at Bull this close, Bull could see that he looked like he hadn't had a solid night's sleep since Tally got to Skyhold. Hadn't been eating right, either--his cheekbones were getting over-sharp. And his hair needed a trim. Even the points of his moustache didn't look quite right. Maybe he'd be more willing to listen to reason than Bull would have thought.

"I know you were frightened of him," Dorian said levelly. "But why do you leap to the conclusion that he was going to eat you, hm? I can't think you'd taste very good."

Tally made a little outraged noise, straightening up in Dorian's hold. "He grabbed me right up and swung me in the air and--and--"

Bull vaguely recognized the shape of one of those children's stories where the Qunari were cannibal monsters-- _fee, fie, fo, fum_ and all that--the better to threaten bas children into good behavior with. Dorian either didn't hear it, or ignored it with perfect unconcern.

"I don't see a stewpot anywhere," Dorian said lightly. "Bull, do you have a stewpot handy? I should think you'd have to cook this one a long time to get a meal from her."

"Nah," Bull said, watching the kid cautiously as he followed Dorian's lead; she did seem to be relaxing the more Dorian talked at her. Dorian's patter had to be pretty damn familiar to her by now. "I'm not that good at cooking. Rather just go have dinner at the Herald's Rest, that's a lot easier. Been a long day on the road already."

"Oh, well, Tally knows all about that, don't you, Tally? Weren't you awfully tired from traveling when you got to Skyhold? You didn't want to go to a lot of bother making your own dinner, did you?"

Tally sniffled again. "But then why did he--why did you--"

Bull glanced at Dorian, who nodded, giving him the first shot at answering that half-articulated question. Bull took a cautious half-step closer, spreading his hands. "Well, you came running into the courtyard without looking where you were going--looking for Cole, to see if he was in the stables, maybe?"

Dorian raised an eyebrow at that. Tally nodded, sniffled, and rubbed at her eyes.

Bull went on in the same gentle tone Dorian had used. "So I saw that you were about to run into one of my guys who was carrying some stuff that could have hurt you and him both if he dropped it--" and everyone else in the courtyard and possibly the structural integrity of Skyhold, but they didn't need to get into the concept of _blast radius_ right now. "So I grabbed you to get you out of the way. I'm sorry I scared you," he added, feeling like he had his Tama watching over his shoulder to see that he modeled proper manners to the imekari.

"Oh," Tally said in a small voice, and looked at Dorian for direction. He nodded meaningfully. "I'm sorry I screamed. And tried to do magic and make another fire. And I'm sorry I made a fire, Papa, but I... I..." her voice swerved toward tears again.

Dorian shushed her softly, taking a step toward Bull as he did. "Now that we have that sorted out, would you like to be introduced to this nice Tal-Vashoth gentleman who saved you, filia?"

Bull wondered, a little dazed, whether any Altus in the entire history of the Tevinter Imperium had ever before uttered the phrase _this nice Tal-Vashoth gentleman_ \--but then it wasn't like he didn't know Dorian was one of a kind.

Tally wiped her face with the back of her hand, peering curiously at Bull. "Do you know my papa?"

"Yeah, I do." Bull offered her his hand. "I'm The Iron Bull, leader of Bull's Chargers, and a... pretty good friend of your papa's."

"Very dear friend," Dorian corrected firmly. "Bull, I'm sure you've gathered already--long since--but please allow me to present my daughter, Tally Pavus."

Tally wrapped her little hand around Bull's first two fingers and gave him a solemn shake, then turned to look at Dorian with a tiny frown. "Papa, if you and Mr. Bull are very dear friends why didn't I ever meet him before? I wouldn't have been scared and thought he was going to eat me if I _knew_ him."

Dorian winced, shooting an apologetic look at Bull, who gave him a sympathetic look back and offered, "I've been away from Skyhold for a week--we left the day after you got here, Tally."

Tally frowned harder; she had eyebrows smaller than Dorian's lashes and still managed to look properly thunderous somehow. Altus breeding, probably. "Lieutenant Aclassi asked you if you wanted to say goodbye but you _didn't_ , Papa. That wasn't nice."

Bull made a mental note that Tally Pavus was old enough and bright enough to definitely remember anything said in her presence that you wished she wouldn't. He thought that Dorian might actually be blushing, though that only made it more obvious how sickly pale he was, and how dark the circles under his eyes were. 

"You're quite right," Dorian said to Tally, taking the hit squarely, without any of his usual deflection or return fire. "It was a bad mistake, not to introduce you to Bull sooner, and not to say goodbye when the Chargers left."

"Not _that_ bad, Papa," Tally consoled him, actually patting his shoulder. Bull did not laugh even a little bit, but he noticed that Krem and a few of the others were eavesdropping from several yards behind Dorian, so any effort to protect Dorian's dignity was probably wasted. "It was just Lieutenant Aclassi, not a demon."

"Well, if it had been a demon, what should I have said?" Dorian asked, in a prompting tone.

"No, no, no!" Tally responded triumphantly, as if it was something they practiced. Well, he supposed that was where you had to start with a tiny little mage who was going to face a Harrowing someday. She turned to look at Bull. "Do you know about how to tell demons, Mr. Bull?"

"Oh, uh," Bull rubbed the back of his neck and wondered if all conversations with Tally Pavus were this disorienting. She had all of Dorian's sparkle and charm, but in all directions at once. She really, really needed someone who knew what the hell they were doing looking after her, guiding her to hone all that brightness to a usable edge. "Qunari--and Vashoth and Tal-Vashoth, all of us--we don't touch the Fade when we sleep like you do. If I see a demon that means it's gotten out into the world, so I just hit it with something sharp, and that usually takes care of it."

Tally's eyes and mouth rounded out with shocked fascination. "Can I learn to do that? Papa, do you do that?"

"Ah," Dorian said, looking very much like he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose or hide his face again, but bravely facing down his inquisitive daughter. Bull suspected he'd been fielding similarly troubling questions on a regular basis for days now. "As a last resort only, carissima. I'm much better at using magic than sharp objects."

"Aw, you do all right," Bull said without thinking, which did not dampen Tally's interest in the slightest. Dorian shot him a weak glare, looking like he needed a nap before he'd be able to come up with a properly scathing retort.

Well, what better time to start showing Dorian that his way wasn't the only way? There were people who could teach Tally things he couldn't, _and_ who could give him a break when he needed one.

"But I don't think you'd be able to do it the way I do it," Bull added, refocusing on Tally. "Not yet. I mean, check this out--" He took a careful step back before he unslung his great axe from his back and propped one end on the cobbles. "I bet my axe is taller than you, isn't it?"

" _Is_ it?" Tally wriggled and Dorian sighed but let her down, following her over to Bull like Bull was going to let the kid cut herself in half if he didn't watch closely. 

Tally was, in fact, shorter than the axe by a good foot, but she stood on her tiptoes and even wrapped one hand as far as it would go around the grip, straining upward. 

"You'll have a staff," Dorian explained, crouching beside her. "When you're ready, which is not going to be for some time."

Tally looked tragic. "But Papa, what if I meet a demon before then? What will I hit it with?"

"You will not," Dorian started to say, and then sighed and frowned down at the ground, clearly struggling for something to tell her that wasn't an outright lie, like _You will not see a demon in the flesh before you're old enough to wield a staff_. 

"Well, nobody wants to start right off fighting demons," Bull offered. "Right now if you see a demon you should definitely just run away and let your papa and me handle it. But you could start learning to fight stuff a little closer to your own size. What if you met an angry nug?"

"I'm bigger than a nug!" Tally insisted immediately. 

"Are you?" Bull asked, frowning and making showy measuring gestures. "Hm, I don't know..."

"I _am_ ," Tally insisted, bouncing on her heels. "I am bigger! I could fight a nug!" 

Dorian sighed, not very quietly, possibly envisioning Tally going in search of a nug to fight the next time she got away from him. Good. He was in the right frame of mind to see the benefits of letting other people wrangle his kid.

Bull said, "Here, big guy, take this for me, will you?"

Dorian frowned but accepted the grip of the axe when Bull pushed it toward him--and Bull bent and picked Tally up, slower this time, watching her face for any hint of an objection. She jumped into his hands as soon as she realized what he was doing, though, and luckily she was too little for her head to come up as high as his horn when he held her against his side. 

"I think we gotta consult some people closer to your size about where to start," Bull said. "Maybe we should ask Krem--"

"Lieutenant Aclassi," Dorian put in firmly. He was standing straight again, Bull's axe leaning against his hip, watching Bull and Tally with a bemused expression. 

"Sure, _Lieutenant Aclassi_ ," Bull agreed, though he was pretty sure that _lieutenant_ was Krem's job description and not an official rank, since it wasn't like any of the other Chargers, Bull included, had ranks like that. But it was a nice polite title, anyway, a proper thing to teach an imekari to say, and he didn't think Krem would mind it. "Why don't we go see what he says about how he learned to fight? I bet he'd have some ideas for you."

Bull glanced at Dorian, but Dorian made no move to object or even come with Bull over to where the other Chargers stood. 

"You should meet all the Chargers," Bull added, looking back down at Tally. "I bet you haven't met hardly any of them, have you?"

"Salve, Lieutenant Aclassi!" Tally called out instead of answering Bull's question, as they got near to Krem. 

Krem and Dorian rarely got all Vint at each other unless they were drunk or sarcastic or both, but apparently that was how Krem and Tally talked all the time. He smiled and returned, "Salve, Miss Pavus. You need some fighting lessons, huh?"

Tally nodded eagerly, and Krem said, "Well, I might be able to help you out there, but Skinner--this is Skinner, Skinner, this is Dorian's little girl, Tally Pavus--"

Bull glanced back over his shoulder for Dorian, only to find that he'd hauled Bull's great axe over to the stable wall and sat down on the ground beside it in a patch of sunshine. Bull turned back to the introductions, counting seconds to see how long it would take Dorian to fall asleep.


End file.
